a feat equal
by Phoenix Satori
Summary: uraraka pulls an Atlas, and bakugou tries his hand at motivational screaming. ::kacchako::
1. universe of magnitude

BnHA is the tits, y'all.

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ch1: universe of magnitude

What Katsuki feels when the girl with the weird-ass name and come-n'-go accent fucking **drops** and can't dig deep enough to drag herself back to her feet: cheated. _Robbed_.

Uraraka Ochako –a name he only bothers to learn because she's his quarter finals opponent—spends their entire match stirring up some top-shelf suspense, aggressively pressing the attack, keeping his smokescreen dense and his focus low, improvising one teeth-clenching gambit after the next, and putting his much-lauded, freak-quick reflexes to fucking task, all while capitalizing on the destruction she provokes him to wreak, floating shit all over the damn arena toward what he later figures has to have been a genuine intent to collapse his skull in a furious hail of ring debris.

It's a good –and balls-to-the-wall fucking _crazy_ — plan, and whether it's of Deku's design or not, Uraraka's execution is flawless. Which is why, as he's coolly raising his hand to fire off a burst he knows is going to actually _hurt_ , he can't wait to see what else she'll throw at him.

The force of the explosion -easily the biggest he's ever generated—kicks back like a motherfucker, flings Uraraka clear across the arena, and downgrades her meteoric barrage to a shower of harmless pebbles.

Katsuki makes a casual appraisal of the damage he's sustained when his hand picks up a brief, irrepressible tremor. The upper layer of skin on his palm has been finely seared away, and it _burns_ , back like it used to when his quirk first manifested and he had no concept of limits or self-control.

It's fucking _exhilarating_.

Through the clearing smoke, he watches Uraraka pull herself together, clearly overwrought and worse for the wear yet neither down nor out –and in an instant, she's whipping around and rushing him like a mad bull, head lowered and gaze twisted with rage and resolve-

-and every bit as suddenly, she just…crumbles, like the still falling bits of dust and rock from his last-second, full-bore detonation. It happens in one, fluid motion; she doesn't even have the energy to throw out her arms and stop herself from crashing face first into the ground. Katsuki sees her struggling, straining with everything she's got, just to pick herself up again, just to continue, and he sinks back into a defensive posture in acknowledgment.

But Uraraka never makes it back up.

And he's left stunned, wondering what in fuck the _point_ of all that damn build-up was if she was ultimately going to deny him his hard-won pay-off.

The restlessness, the _frustration_ of this hollow, unearned victory gnaws at him –especially when he learns Deku'd had no hand in crafting that reckless-ass strategy of hers, after all.

His aftermath outrage is a universe of magnitude greater following his subsequent match with Todoroki, who has some kind of mental fucking break and checks right the fuck out of the fight midway fucking through it, but Uraraka's inability to finish the round definitely compounds the aggregate intensity of his fury.

At no point prior to their match did Katsuki have reason to conclude Uraraka Ochako might be a wilting flower. She'd gotten into the same elite school he had –into the same course, even; and on their first full day of classes, he'd watched her chuck a baseball into fucking _orbit_. And during the tournament, she hadn't given him time to underestimate her –hell, he only barely had space enough to react the dozen or so times she melted suddenly out of smoke-thick air beside or behind him, floaty-fucking-fingers first.

He doesn't credit his win to inevitability, or to the indisputable difference in their combat abilities. He credits his win to _paying attention_ , and to not assuming she wasn't savvy enough to steal his victory right the fuck from under him if he'd let his guard down for even a half a fist-fucking second.

And every _one_ of these harebrained, bleeding-heart chuckle-fucks breaks his balls for 'daring' to go at her seriously, which makes zero shitting sense because –were they even fucking watching the fight? Angel Face tried to _literally fucking crush him_. Asses for brains, every one of them.

Somehow, beyond his fucking ken, for years afterward, Uraraka manages to retain this reputation for being fiber-glass fucking frail, in spite of the many, _many_ times she proves otherwise –in public, and frequently on national, shit-dicking television.

Katsuki supposes he can kind of get where the villains they face are coming from: she's young and puny and even if they know intellectually she's dangerous, who the fuck ever expects sunshine and rainbows to up and absolutely wreck their shit?

Fucking no one, apparently. Not even after she helps take down one of the most insidious and far-reaching criminal organizations of their era. Not after she graduates with honors from U.A. and is handpicked to sidekick for one of the top heroes in the industry, alongside Bird Boy and Todoroki. And certainly not after she and a handful of other 1-A alum –himself included—pool resources to start their own, high-profile, greatly sought-after agency, comprised of a number of their peers and juniors from both hero courses.

He can't pretend he doesn't enjoy it from time to time; he'll find himself grinning occasionally when their foes underestimate her, unexpectedly giddy, because he knows he'll get a kick out of the looks on the faces of these two-bit shits when Uraraka fucking _destroys_ them.

Still, apart from Eraserhead, Frogger, that shitty-ass nerd – _fucking_ _ **Deku**_ —and he, himself, even their peers and contemporaries routinely underrate her abilities, and she continues to fly under the radar, again and again and again.

…until she pulls an All Might and deadlifts a **motherfucking skyscraper**.

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[next chapter: jirou Knows, kirishima and uraraka don't, and bakugou is bad at subtlety.]


	2. context clues a-fucking-plenty

jirou ships bakuraka, y'all. who knew?

also, note: i think hatsume's the shit.

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ch2: context clues a-fucking-plenty

"What're we up against?" Jirou chimes from behind her. Ochako hums pensively as she continues adjusting the focus knobs and fine-tuning the lenses on Mei's newest spy-tech 'baby,' the so-called 'Materialization Specs,' trying and failing to recall from the tutorial hologram how to optimize the magnification from roughly fifteen hundred meters out. Eventually, she manages –by accident—to work out the correct configuration, and nearly takes a step backward when the image comes into full focus, because her vision suddenly insists she's standin' in the immediate vicinity of their two –no, _three_ targets, instead of nearly two kilometers away, cloistered on the top floor in a building roughly a fourth the size of the monolithic structure that houses the Quirk Registry Office. It's an unsettling, outta-body kinda feeling that wrenches her guts in a way both familiar and foreign.

Still, the up-close, right-in-your-face effect of the Specs is pretty spectacular. She wonders if this 'baby' in any real capacity approximates Mei's quirk.

Ochako recognizes two of their marks from the briefing: a tall, handsome boy not much older than herself, whose general air of mysterious charisma is ruined by the fanatical expression he's wearing –Wareru Retsu*, aka Fissure Freak, whose quirk allows him to catastrophically rupture any non-organic material he touches for seven, uninterrupted seconds. Slightly beside and behind him, a short, wiry young woman stands stooped and shiverin', and though her previously long, lovely hair's been buzzed down nearly to the scalp, it'd be hard for Ochako to forget the ice blue eyes of the O2 Maven, Toru Sanso**, whose picture's been flashin' non-stop on news bulletins across the country for weeks now. The Maven's abilities are as diverse as they are deadly: she can manipulate the molecules in oxygen, to devastating effect. The third member of their party, however, is a complete mystery. All Ochako can determine from here, even with Hatsume's Specs, is that she's a stocky, sharp-eyed woman who manages –bizarrely—to be totally nondescript in a pink-and-turquoise dragon kigurumi. Beyond that, both her identity and her abilities are a big, glarin' question mark.

"Fucking _well_?" The irritated voice of her erstwhile classmate turned comrade-in-arms, Bakugou Katsuki, menaces from directly beside her. She pulls the binoculars away and off-handedly turns them over to him, slippin' back into her actual visual reality just in time to register the prob'ly-accidental yet somehow intentional-feelin' brush of his fingers over hers. She sets the (definitely wrong) intuition aside in the space of a single, weird-lurchin' heartbeat.

Double-tapping the comm in her helmet and addressing her teammates at the same time, "Uravity to Deku: enemy cell located, imminently engagin' Targets J-4 and O-2, plus one Unknown. Sending coordinates; request backup." Ochako slides a glance sideways at by far the most volatile of her mission partners, the once and future 'King of Explodokills,' who's too busy sizin' up their enemies to notice. When he finally disengages the binoculars and hands them off to Kirishima at his back, she sees he's got that familiar, manic gleam in his eyes –the one that, in her experience, always foreshadows _epic_ property damage. "Recommend evacuation of Eisley*** Quarter."

Deku's voice, much-changed since their time at U.A., sounds in her receiver, "Shouto and Deku, enroute. Ingenium, Cellophane, and Creati will handle evacuation protocols. We're on the way –be there in twenty!" Predictably, this elicits an immediate comeback from Bakugou, who reaches up to tap his own comm.

"Don't forget your fuckin' dust pan, _Deku_." The insinuation bein' that clean-up duty's all that'll be left to handle by the time the rest of the team arrives. Ochako chuckles quietly and throws a look over her shoulder at Earphone Jack, who rolls her eyes and elbows Red Riot for her own turn at the Specs.

Deku again: "Let's keep the mayhem to a minimum, eh, Kacchan?"

"Eat shit and die." The poison and volatility are there, same as always, trademark Bakugou, but the exchange is more barbed banter than the screaming combat it once was, and she can't help but marvel at how transformed they both are, at how far they've come together. The fraught, desperate antagonism that once defined their every interaction has given way to a deep, mutual respect –still definitely underscored by hostility, just…no longer exclusively.

Bakugou abruptly slaps his comm off again, automatically snappin' out a rage-furled, spark-poppin' hand in Kirishima's general direction, apparently sensin' the other boy's amused expression and –as always—disapproving that it's at his expense. Kirishima, more than used to this kind of demonstration –and impervious even before that, doesn't even acknowledge the implicit threat.

Hands at his waist, "So, what's the plan? Should just be a skeleton crew of night janitors and security personnel in the building, and it doesn't look like they've taken anyone hostage, so: pair up? Split the difference?" Jirou finally lowers the Specs, owl-eyed for a moment at the drastic perspective shift. Then, she indicates Kirishima and herself with her thumb.

"I'm assuming we're on evac duty?" And then—" _You_ want Uravity, yeah?" This latter question comes pointedly aimed at Bakugou, and feels somehow charged with more-than-surface-meanin'. Judging by the dangerous, simmerin' Look he sends back at her, Bakugou knows exactly what Jirou isn't saying. Ochako and Kirishima exchange puzzled glances.

"Wanna fucking _go_ , Earlobes?" Bakugou challenges, stance suddenly low and both hands now kicking out a series of miniature explosions. For the life of her, Ochako can't figure out what's set him off this time. Jirou's cedin' the combat opportunity to him –he should be happy!

Jirou, unimpressed with his tantrum, "I'll take that as a yes." Then, because she enjoys poking combustible bears—"Feel free to continue protesting too much, though." Ochako grimaces as Bakugou fumes (literally) and swears, while Jirou flatly ignores him in favor of tucking the Specs into her hip pack and chuckin' her chin toward the door with her eyes on Kirishima. Recognizin' this as his cue to follow, he flashes a wink at Ochako and a thumbs-up at his blast-happy best friend, and trails along after Jirou.

"Save us some action!" He calls back.

Fully tunin' out Bakugou's obscene tirade, Jirou makes a half-turn at the door, "Give us five for a head-start, then green-light the sector alert." Ochako nods in agreement and waves goodbye –except Jirou's still standin' there, lookin'…smug? And lookin' smug at _her_. She frowns, the frustration of bein' so deliberately left in the dark beginning to wear on her. "You kids have fun –but be safe about it." The suggestive tone is unmistakable, but also confusing. What the heck's she missin' here?

Bakugou, meanwhile—"I will plug my FIST INTO YOUR FUCKING FACE, YOU SOCKET-FUCKING-!" She imagines he'd have continued, but he chokes off with a roar of wordless fury when Jirou blows him a kiss and promptly leaves the room, closin' the door behind her. " _That **FUCKING BIT—MMMF**_!" Ochako smacks a hand over his mouth and scowls up at him in disapproval. The blessed silence this generates lasts precisely as long as it takes for her to break contact. Then—"YOU WANT SOME, TOO?!" She rubs her temples, exasperated.

" _What_ was all _that_ about?" The fell expression he's wearing falls abruptly away, leavin' him looking hunted, and sour-surly. She waits for the inevitable, colorful 'Fuck you,' followed by an even more imaginative 'Mind your fuckin' business!' Oddly, neither ever comes.

Instead, Bakugou reactivates his comm to relay Jirou's parting instructions and slides open the room's only window, and even before he hops up onto the sill and fearlessly dangles his legs over the ledge, twenty-some stories above street level, she realizes he means this to be their exit point.

Ochako ain't the type to break people down and analyze 'em like Deku, and she doesn't have the singular-specific kinda insight into Bakugou's mind Kirishima unquestionably does, but she's worked alongside him for long enough that she's pretty good now at readin' his cues, 'specially in the field, where they've always shared a certain, remarkable compatibility. A couple years back, when they were still employed at separate agencies, a chance tag-team encounter demonstrated how much they'd both grown since high school, and how unexpectedly complementary their respective skill sets could be in a fight. She and Bakugou've teamed up countless times since, as sparrin' partners and inter-agency collaborators and even test subjects for a group of JAXA scientists researchin' anti-grav explosions.

All of which make Jirou's cryptic insinuations so baffling: Bakugou _usually_ wants her to partner up with him. 'Cause he acknowledges her abilities, n' 'cause they work well together, n' maybe also 'cause she tolerates his generally unhinged disposition better'n most –or so she thought. But if Jirou's hintin' at there maybe bein' _other_ reasons—

"Oi, you comin', or you good there with your thumbs up your ass?" With a silent, strangled whimper, this disturbin' line of thought –and her escalating panic— promptly terminates. Jirou's chasin' ghosts.

/-/

Katsuki doesn't offer his hand or indicate in any way what he wants from Uraraka (at this present moment, for this particular fucking situation, and fucking _**fuck** , wiseass fucking Earlobes is **in his fucking head**_ , 'cause who the fuck else is he justifying himself to?), because she's not a toddler and she can figure it the fuck out for herself. He's halfway out the window on the top floor of a high-rise, for fuck's sake –and this is far from the first time they will have taken the 'high road.' There're context clues a-fucking-plenty.

-so why the _fuck_ is she just _standing there_ , staring into space like that shitty-ass nerd lord, Deku? Like she's eyeball-deep into parsing the damn riddle of the century?

She frowns at him when he calls her out, but it shakes loose whatever –likely _**Jirou**_ -induced—preoccupation has her fastened to the spot, so he'll take it. Still with that scrunched, sulking expression, she closes the distance between them, fucking finally remembering they're here to do their goddamn job.

Then- "Ya' don't have to be rude, y'know." It's a low admonishment, murmured directly into his ear, because she's behind him now, pressed against him snug-as-you-fucking-please, arms winding tight around his collar. She smells like a fucking summer meadow. For the hundredth time, Katsuki prepares to leap out a window wearing Uraraka like a skin-tight backpack, and for the _hundredth time_ , he feels superheated, like he's on _fire_.

" _Ready_?" He snaps, hating every moment of this on principle. He knows she's frowning again because his peripheral vision works and because her face is _right fucking there_.

"When you are." And with that, warm fingers at his neck instantly neutralize the totality of gravitational forces working against him, and he begins falling slowly upward. He kicks gently off the sill, giving Uraraka time to lock her legs together over his hips, and then, willfully suppressing the never-pleasant, nauseous tug at his guts (an unavoidable consequence of her quirk), he throws back his hands and chains explosions to propel them forward, and they cleave through nearly two kilometers in a deafening handful of seconds. It's not subtle, but unless Dragon Fucker in there has some truly spectacular support quirk, their marks don't have time to go _anywhere_. And in any case, _fuck_ subtlety.

A blink before they smash through one of the eight-million windows of the Quirk Registry, Katsuki flings out a hand and expels a charge that vaporizes the layers of reinforced and laminated glass, using the grenadier of his other arm as a shield to protect Uraraka and himself from the wave of heat, and any resulting glass spray. Uraraka, for her part, ducks her head and buries her face against his shoulder, which does absolutely _nothing_ to abate the sensation that he's been chucked into a fucking furnace.

Popping a final blast backward, they sail through the improvised opening into what is clearly a conference room –there's a projection screen on the opposite wall, and a long, wide table at the center of the room, flanked on either side by neat columns of office chairs. Their landing is fucking flawless: he hits the floor at optimal velocity and attitude, peripherally aware of Uraraka's grip slackening, of her fingers steepling to release her technique at precisely the instant after he touches down, so they don't go bouncing around the room like a couple of assholes. He reaches up automatically to grab her wrist and steady her as she decouples and drops to her feet behind him, and she double-taps his shoulder blade to signal he should let her go. He is a level of relieved to no longer be touching her that is fucking ridiculous.

The walls are floor-to-ceiling glass panels, through which he can plainly see Fissure, the Maven, and the dull-faced woman in fantasy fucking footie-pajamas, all staring wide-eyed and disbelieving into the conference room.

Katsuki wastes no time marching to and throwing open the door, knowing without needing to look that Uraraka's falling into step right after him, and that she'll be visually assessing the perimeter while he keeps his focus squarely on the trio near the eastern stairwell, across several rows of already demolished desks and computers.

By the time they're within conversation distance, Katsuki can see none of them are looking at Uravity. All three pairs of eyes are fixed on him. She may as well be Hagakure for all they notice her.

 _Your fucking funeral_ , he smirks, lowering his stance and pulling his elbows back, palms up and open and freely steaming -his 'signature pose,' according to Kirishima.

Then: "Who's first, fuckwits?"

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i think horikoshi's naming conventions are darling af, and though i have ZERO kanji-bility, and my japanese vocabulary is extremelylimited, i wanted to at least keep with the spirit of things, sooooo:

*wareru - to fissure; haretsu - rupture

**Toru Sanso - to steal oxygen

***eisley - as in mos, from star wars, because this is horikoshi's japan, where all the cities are swars-inspired.  
/-/

clearly, jirou is privy to some juicy, secret knowledge...which may or may not be included in the actual timeline of this fic. if it isn't, i'll do a one-off at some point detailing What She Saw, but for now, suffice it to say she is fucking ON TO YOU, my 'splodey son.

there will *definitely* be an interstitial chapter exploring the 'chance tag-team encounter' referenced briefly by uraraka -which necessarily entails some light, linear narrative fuckery, but there's a lot of vaguely alluded-to history here that demands flesh...plump, tender story flesh...

[next chapter: bakgou diplomacizes, fissure monologues, and uraraka counts to seven.]


	3. the feral smug

this chapter tried its damndest to kill me.

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ch3: the feral smug

The conference room door arcs outward with a skull-knockin' collision of metal doorknob and thick, glass wall. Thankfully, nothing outright shatters, but Ochako does hear the tell-tale ' _crunch_ ' of splintering glass, likely at the point of impact. She casts Bakugou a look of censure, and watches him tip his chin back n' bare his teeth in what she recognizes immediately as his ' _Wanna_ _ **go**_?!' face. Puffing out her cheeks in a gesture of moue, she files the incident away for her damages report later and turns back to the task at hand, trusting him to keep eyes on their adversaries.

Setting out, Bakugou peels off his gloves and tucks 'em into the back of his pants, a conditioned, ease-of-access action he always takes when they pair up, so she can float him at her leisure. The reflex consideration never fails to give her a warm, proud feeling.

In the meantime, Ochako runs a diagnostic of their surroundings through her visor, into which the Chief Research Officer of HatsuCorp herself recently installed the newest iteration of her much-coveted surveillance software. The only heat signatures on this floor are the three before them, though there appears to be someone moving on the floor above them, unhurriedly, almost…lazily. Somethin' about the meandering, methodless path this person cuts triggers her suspicion. Acknowledging the possibility this could be building personnel, she nevertheless sets a dedicated sensor to track what could just as easily be a fourth member of the Breaking and Entering party. She also transmits the information to Kirishima and Jirou, advisin' they proceed with caution. Then, she modifies her search parameters to sweep the floor for traps, or significant concentrations of the 'quirk residue' Mei's team famously figured out how to detect and measure. All that really lights up is the ruined mass of much-fractured –and wet?—desks and office paraphernalia at Fissure's feet –his work, definitely. The liquid coating the sputterin' machines and assorted industrial materials turns out to be water, accordin' to the composition read-out –but water generated by quirk. Could the kigu-girl's quirk be water-based? Her outfit covers her hands, feet, and the lower half of her face, suggestin' otherwise, but Ochako doesn't rule out the likelihood completely. Or, could the Maven've chemically bonded existing hydrogen molecules with enough quirk-spun oxygen to produce this not-little amount of water? Is that even _possible_?

While Ochako weighs other, less far-fetched explanations, they reach a comfortable gulf of separation and come to a gradual stop. Bakugou breaks the ice, employin' his customary diplomacy:

"Who's first, fuckwits?" Ochako makes no attempt to head off the goading challenge, owin' to the strategy's proven effectiveness. The results aren't always pretty, but with surprising regularity, the prospect of havin' to face down the 'Mad Bomber' (a nickname he picked up years ago and wears with fiendish glee) is all it takes to persuade lesser ne'er-do-wells to surrender on the spot, before any blood can be spilled. Bakugou's been proudly cultivating his ferocious reputation since high school, and now, a handful of years into his pro career, he relishes his role as the boogeyman for villains.

Looks like it's maybe gonna take a smidge more'n the surprise arrival of one of the top heroes in the industry to cow this trio, though. They unmistakably know who Bakugou is –they're all three gawpin' at him like he's about to sprout fangs and breathe fire, but none of them seem 'specially keen on waving any white flags.

Even as she's realizin' they're likely in for a fight, the ambush shock sloughs from Fissure's striking features, and the look of fevered zealotry returns, identical to the expression he was sporting when she checked him out through the Specs. Recklessly, Fissure Freak snaps his hand out in front of him, convulsively squeezin' it into a fist. Bakugou doesn't so much as twitch, but her hair-trigger trainin' has her shiftin' automatically into a ready stance.

" _Never encourage escalation, but if you're always poised to intercept an attack, you can't be caught off your guard."_ Gunhead's gentle wisdom, from her very first internship, flashes through her mind like a heartening refrain, as it has durin' every criminal encounter since the Provisional License Exam.

Still, when Ochako sees the arctic gaze of the Maven flick toward her, caught by her sudden movement, she curses herself for flinching. The slide of those cold eyes as they return to Bakugou feels stingingly dismissive.

Fissure, meanwhile, shouting: "The public revere you as gods, when you are in fact tyrannical arbiters, given carte blanche to play judge and jury! You are parodies of justice! The hero industrial complex is a dangerous farce!" It's not an unfamiliar speech, or sentiment. The ripples Stain set into motion all those years ago continue to yield swells of misplaced mayhem. She doesn't interrupt, wanting to give him plenty of space to air his grievances. The longer he's monologuin', the longer Kirishima and Jirou have to clear the building, and the more time Deku and the others'll have to get here. For that matter, if they can keep him talkin', there's a chance they may be able to talk him _down_. "Yet, at the foundation of it all –the _Registry_ ," he sneers the word, "this, this archaic instrument of oppression! The database into which we are all so carefully catalogued and filed away, listed by number and abilities, funneled into subjective categories of usefulness –all toward the creation of a convoluted, modern-day caste system!" Ochako watches his companions –Maven, with a worn but indulgent crescent-grin; the indeterminately-aged girl in the kigu pickin' absently at crud in her ear, radiating disinterest. "The Registry is a nefarious tool –a method of control, that fashions human beings into resources, disenfranchising those among us still without quirks—" Weirdly, Bakugou _does_ flinch at this, open palms spasming into fists—"enabling the vile institution of quirk marriages—" Sparks crack and fizzle between the spaces of Bakugou's fingers, and cold dread edges her furtively closer to fold her hand gently over his forearm, just for a beat, just long enough for him to tense up and realize his mistake and stopper his quirk. As long as the Maven's able to use hers, usin' _his_ quirk carries too big a risk; can't go swampin' the place up with volatile chemicals while they're squarin' off against a fire-starter. Speaking of: as her arm slides away from his, she notes an ice-eyed stare riveted to the wafer wisps o' smoke curlin' out of Bakugou's fists.

Heart in her throat, Ochako perceives the intangible, yet decisive, shift in the atmosphere. The air's charged, electric with imminent combat.

Fissure doesn't appear to've cottoned on, however, and she tunes back into his tirade as he's hittin' a crescendo—

"—challenge the utility of such a _medieval_ taxonomy! You and your like may find yourself at the pinnacle of this iniquitous hierarchy, but your parents, your friends, your _children_ , may not be so lucky! Likely _aren't_! And though you may ostensibly benefit from it, you cannot see the box, the _cage_ in which this unbalanced arrangement has trapped you! We have come to restore an upset equilibrium! To _erase_ and forcibly reform this broken institution! THIS is the path to justice! THIS is the purpose to which TRUE heroes should aspire! Will you not _join us_!" With a mad flourish, Fissure raises both arms into the air, triumphant.

Typically, this's where Ochako'd try to contain the loomin' violence with reason, maybe even convince their would-be challengers to surrender, but Maven's hands are peelin' discreetly away from her sides, each of her long, bony fingers makin' barely-there spooling motions, prob'ly gettin' ready to activate her quirk—

"Oi," Bakugou says, cuttin' clean through the awkward tension that settles in the too-quiet aftermath of Fissure's unexpected proposition, "you fuckin' done?" The Maven's eyes're _glowing_ , and Ochako's hand meets Bakugou's in a low five he's already swingin' into, 'cause he sees it, too, the comin' first strike— "Life ain't fair, and you're a shit-guzzlin' hack, we _get it_." Fissure Freak's eyes widen impossibly, and he looks _really_ crazy now. She presses pinky to thumb, controllin' the rate at which gravity looses its hold on Bakugou, securin' him at a meticulous handful o' centimeters off the floor—"Dipshit's choice: surrender, or suffer."

But Fissure never gets a chance to consider the ultimatum, 'cause it's no sooner'n Bakugou stops talkin' that a pair o' provocations kick off the hostilities: the evacuation sirens they ordered earlier shrill their eerie, oscillating wail, which fills the night with the million clamorin's of an entire sector's worth of people, scramblin' to flee the area; and Bakugou, simultaneously, sucks in an urgent breath that chokes off on a body-wrackin' cough, leavin' him suddenly gaspin' for air – _Maven_! Tinglin' heat prickles at her collar, burnin' up the back of her neck, and in a moment of livid clarity, she gives the signal to engage and urges her body to _**move**_.

In a seamless, parallel sequence, Bakugou surges toward the Maven at a dead sprint, strides lengthened n' lightened by her quirk; while Ochako hunkers to the floor, foldin' the pads of her fingers against her free palm, shakin' her own gravity and slingshottin' herself upward at a sharp, diagonal grade, only switchin' on her suit's stabilizing hip rockets when she reaches the apex of her jump directly over Fissure Freak's head. She lurches to a jarring, mid-air halt, just as Fissure finally catches on and falls to his knees, pressin' both hands to the office floor. Panic lances through her as she flashes back to that horrible scene from not half a year past, when he opened a fault line in downtown Hosu and sank three full city blocks into the bowels of the earth.

Fissure was always gonna be Ochako's to take down –a reality she and Bakugou both grasped intuitively, without discussion or cue. She can put the Freak out of commission with a single touch, get him airborne and outta reach of anything solid in a blink. Floatin' the Maven wouldn't have quite the same stayin' effect – her molecular manipulation abilities don't require contact, or proximity. Takin' _her_ out of action's gonna require a…heavier hand.

She has seven seconds before his quirk activates. Seven seconds to remove their greatest offensive threat, and avert a disaster that could alter the landscape of the whole flippin' city.

 _No big deal. I can do this._ _ **No big deal**_ _._

Channelin' her inner-Deku, Ochako abstractedly sorts priorities and starts countin' off, second by precious second – _one_ , kigu-girl seems uninterested in participatin' in the fight, and makes a run for the stairwell without so much as a backward glance. _Two_ , a visibly off-balance Bakugou reaches the Maven, swingin' a wild right hook that goes wide when she dances outta range – _three_ —but the attempted blow turns out to be a feint he uses to throw himself sideways into a near-horizontal, spinnin' flip, from which a deadly accurate, booted foot lashes out like a whip, crackin' into her sternum and layin' her flat. _Four_ , Bakugou draws in a full, unobstructed breath, and Ochako brims with relief as she orients herself to her preferred angle of attack and pulls her thumb n' pinky apart, makin' ready to drop herself and not botherin' to give Bakugou a heads-up 'cause they've been doin' this so long he plain doesn't need one. _Five_ , she wedges her fingers together, releasing her technique and tweakin' her descent where necessary. At first, it looks like Fissure's determined to activate his quirk no matter what damage he might sustain in the process, but at literally the last possible second – _six_ —the muscles in his back bunch n' tense n' he breaks contact with the floor to roll himself over, hands shootin' out to intercept her. In the _hard_ knee-to-diaphragm landing that ensues, Fissure manages to snag the visor of her helmet and rip the whole thing off in a single, savage pull, even as blood, spittle, n' all the air in his body comes whooshin' up out of him.

She doesn't wait for him to recover, instead seizin' him by his other hand, this one contorted n' locked just outta range of her throat, where his frenzied strike drew up short. Relievin' Fissure of his gravity, she nimbly rolls herself over n' off of him, haulin' him along for the ride. Tethered by her grip, he completes a wide, perfect arc that terminates in his second spine-to-floor collision in less than a minute. Ochako winces when he snaps back against the ground like a bent sapling, but climbs swiftly to her feet all the same, catchin' her fingers in his dark sweater and hurlin' him effortlessly _up_ toward the ceiling. Disoriented an' breathless as he is, he's got no way of stoppin' himself from bouncin' off the light fixture she's (unintentionally) thrown him at, so he hits at rammin' speed, crackin' casing an' florescent bulb alike, and rebounds with a low, wounded moan. Meanwhile, she touches first her index, then her middle and ring fingers to her thumb, drastically slowin' and ultimately outright freezin' him in place –ensurin' he's far away from any surfaces he might shove off of or destroy, yet also close enough to the ceiling that Maven and their kigu-costumed ally won't be able to jump up and smack him outta the air or drag him back down to earth.

Vaguely, while she's fixin' him into position, she spies her helmet nearby, busted and ruined where it'd been flung out of Fissure's grasp at some point, likely while she was ragdollin' him around the office. Ochako mourns the exclusive software bundle she's just lost, already reconcilin' herself to a diet of ramen and rice for the next few months so she can eventually spring for a replacement…at least until Kirishima finds out she's savin' up again and dreams up every flimsy pretext under the sun to invite her over for meals a la Bakugou –a scenario which has, embarrassingly, played out before. More than once, actually…

Castin' off thoughts of her own impending destitution, she gives Fissure a final once-over, and sees him takin' belated, angry stock of his situation. He flails helplessly, makin' mad grabs for something, _anything_ to ground him or help him generate a little momentum, but without some external force to act on him, no amount of wigglin' or swimming'll make a lick o' difference. Apparently sensin' her her attention, Fissure abruptly stops struggling and glowers down at her, gaze knife-edged with demented purpose and frightening promise.

Partially to offset the unease of bein' so suddenly and single-mindedly menaced, she calls up to him,

"Be good for me an' stay put, 'kay? I'll be back to check up on ya' in no time." She winks at him when his response is to flash both of Bakugou's favorite fingers at her, and then she pivots on her heel and takes off after the girl in the kigurumi, who's got a solid head-start on her. 'Course, no matter how many floors the girl's cleared, Ochako's quirk'll make catchin' up a piece of cake, but she still fully sprints for the stairwell, not wantin' to waste a second. Her gut agitatedly insists that the faster she can bag kigu-girl and get back to help Bakugou wrangle the Maven, the better.

* * *

In the midst of their violently tangled-together brawl, Katsuki notices peripherally what his opponent can see directly: Uraraka, racing for the stairs, and the Freak, pinned in midair, furiously –if pointlessly—thrashing. Under a shitting _minute_ , and they're already one down.

He makes no attempt to stifle the feral smug smearin' its way across his face as the Maven's washes out with naked disbelief.

* * *

this was supposed to be two pages, max.

*headdesk*

[next chapter: shit hits fan, uraraka wears bakugou like a seatbelt.]


	4. stuff of legends

this chapter is…very long. it...it just _happened_.

also, just to reiterate: i have a _huge_ and largely inexplicable fondness for hatsume mei. she gives me bulma 'prolific genius' and hiruma 'for-love-of-the-game' and 'blackmail' vibes, which i *love.* so yes, there is absolutely a between-the-lines subplot explicating hatsume's benevolent choke-hold on the pro hero world happening in this fic. in case anyone was curious.

enjoy!

* * *

Katsuki floors the Maven in a fraction of the time it takes Uravity to hang the Freak in the air like the indignant centerpiece of a deranged mobile. Under regular circumstances, this would be the end of the fight, and make _him_ lead on rounding up the anonymous chicken-shit tearing for the stairwell. It wouldn't normally matter how fast she bounces back, because he'd already be flipping her over, wedging his knee between her shoulder blades, and slapping her into Target Eyes' patented quirk-sealing, movement-inhibiting handcuffs (' _Stiffies_ ,' as she calls them, the very product that pink-haired _demon_ recently duped him into endorsing in the shittiest commercial of all time). Instead, he has to spend a crucial second replenishing his oxygen reserves and regaining his disrupted sense of balance, and Maven takes full advantage of the opportunity to trundle herself sideways, out of immediate striking range. Her temporary breakaway is irritating, but he does note with satisfaction that she's having to catch her own breath, knocked out of her either by the hard shock of his instep to her chest or the whiplash impact of her body slamming flat against the floor.

He's on the attack again in no time, sliding into a scissor grab with his legs to pull her off-balance –except she's more nimble than her gangly, awkward-ass form suggests, and she cuts again to one side just before he can wrap her shins and fling her right back to earth. Before he's fully lost the momentum of his dive, he rolls back and tucks his knees to his chest, kicking up to a wide stance on the roll forward, and dropping to his knees to duck under the row of knuckles the Maven sends flying for the bridge of his nose. Katsuki angles his fall so he lands aslant of her, and aims a shovel hook up at the base of her ribs that strikes devastatingly true. He feels the intended break and _give_ , sees the mad panic in her – _shit_ , definitely glowing again—eyes as her lungs temporarily refuse to inflate. _Again_ , he reminds himself, appreciating the irony of stealing the _O2 Maven's_ breath away.

Sure he's broken a rib and knowing first-hand how much that shit _hurts_ , he doesn't expect she'll be able to move for at least the next minute, let alone make an attack, so she nearly catches him out with the elbow she immediately brings down at the back of his head. The subtle displacement of air above him has him rolling instinctively into a somersault, and while he avoids the brunt of the attack, she gets in a glancing blow to his ear, which fucks his balance so hard he almost lays _himself_ flat. He gives himself the space of a full heartbeat to process the pain and recover as much of his equilibrium as he can, but no more, because intel says all she needs is a couple seconds of uninterrupted focus to activate her quirk, and her bony, witch fingers are already curling in circles, and she's grinning like a shark around the blood inexplicably streaming out of her nose—

-and then the air is poison. Carbon monoxide, at a high-ass concentration, if the dizzy, stabbing headache rapidly coming on is anything to go by.

Katsuki knows this shit gets deadly _fast_ , that he has precious little time to jam her up and neutralize her quirk before he spews or keels over or fucking both. He rushes her with one arm extended and his trademark, post-apocalyptic road warrior smile cranked clear up to Bloodbath, like he means to make with the pyrotechnics out of pure, suicidal desperation. It's a fake-out, of course; he's firing off jack shit 'til this crazy resilient bag of bones goes down, but he makes a show of bracing his arm with the opposite hand, as if to absorb the shotgun recoil of his quirk, while what he actually does is furtively unbuckle and slide out of his left grenadier with rote ease, so he can chuck it point-blank into her mysteriously still-bleeding face. Or that's where he _thinks_ he aims, anyway –she seems to teleport impossibly out of the way, and as the bracer goes sailing harmlessly past, he realizes he's misjudged her actual spatial distance. Barely, but enough. Still, rewarding as it would've been to watch the Maven eat grenade and wipe the fuck out, even the missed potshot distracts her into giving him an opening.

Running a lightning-quick series of calculations to correct for his fucked visual acuity and depending on his instincts for the rest, he spears out a hand, snagging the nape of her neck and folding her abruptly _down_. As she bends irresistibly at the waist, his knee smashes up into her solar plexus, and he _hears_ the breath leave her this time, in a choking, truncated cough. Somehow, after all this, the air is _still fucking poison_ , and he unintentionally relaxes his grip in a lapse of blurry disorientation. Maven wastes no time rolling herself out of his clutch-hold, but in spite of some seriously labored breathing and a face now fucking _covered_ in blood (which he wagers has to be the drawback of sustained or repeated use of her quirk), she doesn't retreat. She closes on him with a snarl, striking randomly and sluggishly, without technique, but then she doesn't need much when he's having to expend twice as much energy to see straight and _keep on his ass-eating feet_.

In the midst of their violently tangled-together brawl, Katsuki notices peripherally what Maven can see directly: Uraraka, racing for the stairs, and the Freak, pinned in midair, furiously – if pointlessly—thrashing. Under a shitting _minute_ , and Uraraka's already benched the trio's overpowered blowhard.

He makes no attempt to stifle the feral smug smearin' its way across his face as the Maven's washes out with naked disbelief.

" _ **What**_ —!" Is all Bones gets out before he takes advantage of her split-second preoccupation and delivers a blow that very definitely dislocates her left shoulder. The Maven screams, and the freaky-ass glow of her eyes finally dims, and _holy shit he can_ _ **breathe**_ _again_.

As he sucks in great, greedy gulps of fresh air, he sets either of his hands at the wrist and elbow of the Maven's good arm, locking her shoulder joint and guiding her face-first into the ground with a gratifying, audible ' _smack_ '. Uraraka reaches the stairwell as he's reaching for the cuffs in his pocket. She doesn't look back to flash him the usual winking-smile combo, but she does lift two fingers into a waggling, victorious 'V' as she disappears behind the door, clearly for his exclusive benefit. He rolls his eyes, because _every damn time_.

He's developed a stupid habit, too, of making the specific effort to look out for her kitsch routine, _also_ every damn time.

" _Toru_!" Soapbox shouts from his mid-air perch. Ignoring him, Katsuki fixes one of the chrome bracelets to her right arm, and watches with a private scowl as a custom-fitting cone of ultra-thin metal sheeting emerges in a cascading spiral, wrapping from wrist to just below her elbow. Her body stiffens unnaturally as he stoops to give her the matching set, and he knows an overpowering rigor is working its way through her like an electrical current, that she'll be near fully immobilized in a matter of seconds. He knows this because it hasn't been long since Eijirou and Ashido ambushed him in his _fucking sleep_ , taking their lives into their hands to clap him into these devil shackles and snap incriminating photos of Eijirou giving him a markered-on, Daruma* makeover, all to fulfill a Mei Hatsume mandate –'cause somehow _he_ is the lesser of two evils between them. (Target Eyes blackmails him into an endorsement deal with the proofs, and escapes retribution by the same means, but a few weeks after the fact, Ashido shows up demanding to be fed, and Katsuki whips up a meal featuring a generous portion of ingredients rating in the hundreds of thousands of units on the Scoville index**, for her and Eijirou both. The subsequent screaming chaos about squares them, by his reckoning.)

Again, from above, "Un _hand_ her! I will _kill you_ , you vile-!"

Katsuki assumes there's more, but the rest of Fissure's speech is drowned out suddenly by the literal deluge that issues forth from the ceiling.

/-/

Apprehending the girl in the kigurumi turns out not to be the chore Ochako expects. The girl hasn't made it far –four or five flights max—so when she drops herself down the center of the stairwell, she's not even fully falling yet before she's swingin' herself over the railing and onto the landing, touching down practically nose-to-nose with the floppy, nub-horned face of a cartoon dragon. Kigu-girl's hands go up _instantly_.

"I yield." The flat, detached tone of her voice clashes weirdly with the breathless desperation of her attempted getaway. This dissonance momentarily flusters Ochako, but she moves to bind the girl all the same –cautiously, wary of the potential for sneak attacks. But the girl makes no further bids for freedom, and obeys Ochako's every instruction without question or hesitation.

It isn't 'til she's wrapping her quirk-dampening rope around the girl's stomach and tyin' it off at the wrists that she happens to catch a shift of light that hits kigu-girl's pear green skin just right –enough for her to glimpse what looks very much like lines of circuitry snakin' every which way across the landscape of the girl's face and neck, running into n' out of nodes the size of small freckles. Once she sees the fine markings, she wonders how she ever missed 'em.

Ochako steps back around to face her. "Could I just…?" She asks, fingers hoverin' at the trim of the be-dragoned hood. The girl nods, catchin' her meaning, and Ochako gently peels back the heavy fabric, revealing a loose, tangled bob several shades darker than her skin, against which the maze of pale circuitry hair is unmistakable. Ochako hazards an educated guess. "Y'know, it didn't make sense to me before, when we were told there was a team lookin' to take out the Registry, since whether or not the building's destroyed, the data's backed up on remote servers who-knows-where-else. After that speech back there, I wondered if y'all were maybe aiming more for a _symbolic_ kinda destruction, but that's…not the case, is it? Are you…the one they call 'Malware?" The girl's unfocused gaze suddenly sharpens.

"Affirmative." Ochako takes this in. The most elusive and prolific cyber-criminal of the decade is here – _here_ , in person, to wipe the Quirk Registry. Among her many hacking talents, it's generally believed Malware's quirk is 'electronic erasure' –the ability to extract digital data from its source code and purge it, wholesale, from every electronic 'space' in which it exists. If she can get to it, supposedly, she can completely delete it. Which must mean the source code for the Registry's archives is inaccessible anywhere but onsite. "I would like the record to reflect my full cooperation." She continues, in corporate cadence. Ochako nods automatically, still deep in thought. She can't help but wonder about this solemn-faced girl, about what unhappy history might've motivated her to ditch the safety of wherever she's kept herself squirreled away all these years, a location or series of locations the country's top minds –and quirks—have consistently failed to discover.

"It will." Then, thoughtfully, "You must feel pretty strongly about this, huh? Takin' out the Registry, I mean." Malware looks her directly in the eyes, and behind the already familiar indifference Ochako thinks she sees sadness, n' maybe anger, or determination.

"It is objectively unethical and amoral." Is all she says, but with more conviction than anything else she's said so far. Ochako sets a hand on the girl's shoulder and walks her the short distance to the railing in silence.

"I agree." She eventually confesses. Malware blinks once, slowly, skeptically. "And I think a few of my friends do, too." She taps her comm, the little earbud all that remains of her _grievously expensive_ headgear. "Riot? Jack? Got a sec?"

" _Copy_ ," and " _What's up_?" Sound in her ear simultaneously, from Jirou and Kirishima respectively.

"Unknown target identified: call-sign, 'Malware' in custody."

" _Woah,_ _ **what**_!" Kirishima exclaims.

"She voluntarily surrendered herself, and I'm lookin' to get her evacuated so I can head back up to help Ground Zero with the Maven."

Dependably, Jirou anticipates the comin' request, " _What floor are you on? We're on the twelfth._ " Ochako glances around the stairwell, and spies a black, stenciled-on '19' in the low lighting by the door.

"Nineteenth. I'm in the stairwell –interested in a drop-off?"

" _Sure thing. Red, you head up to sixteen –looks like another pair of custodians there. Uravity, I'll signal you when I'm in the stairwell._ "

"Great, thanks!" She cheerfully returns, reachin' up to switch her comm back to receiver-only mode. In the restored silence of the otherwise vast, dim space, "I think we both know Fissure Freak came here for a reason, too –that he meant to bring this place down after you did your part." Ochako doesn't try to hide her consternation. "There's nothing noble about the city-wide devastation that would've caused. About the scores of innocent people who'd be hurt or killed." She presses her fingers to Malware's forehead, lifts away her gravity, and musters a faint smile. "Lucky for you, we're not gonna let that happen." Ochako takes the girl by the wrists, gently leads her up and over the railing, holds her at a still hover in the yawning expanse below her. Malware's eyes widen, but Ochako reassures the girl she means no harm. Gradually, Malware relaxes. "It may take some time before the authorities'll let me, but I'll come see you when I can, and we can talk alternatives. Maybe even with one or two o' those like-minded friends I mentioned. If you're up for that?" Deadpan features come alive with incredulity.

"A hollow promise…" The girl hedges, but Ochako hears it, the dull edge of hopeful expectation.

"A promise all the same." A distinctive, metallic creak echoes up at them, the sound of a door opening. "But when I _do_ follow through, I hope you'll work with us on figuring up some fixes."

Ochako's receiver activates,

" _Here_." Jirou says, right after Malware asks, "Why?" A bright beam of light flashes up at 'em once, twice, to indicate where Jirou's waiting.

"'Cause if there're people out there so sure we're on the wrong track they're willin' to wreck a whole city to make the point, maybe it's time we at least explore our options." She releases Malware's hands and settles her palms on either of the girl's large shoulders. Then, peerin' into the semi-dark to gauge the distance to Jirou, she pushes down with carefully measured force. "I'll see you again soon." She smiles again and waves, and amazingly, from her midsection, the girl raises one felt paw and waves back.

It's not much, but it feels like a great start, and heartens her as she listens for Jirou to confirm Malware's safe landing.

After a few seconds, " _Package received_." She's about to say her thanks when Jirou speaks up again, urgently. " _Uravity –Malware says we're dealing with a quartet, not a trio—_!" Ochako's already torpedoing herself up the central shaft of the stairwell when Bakugou's breathless, eternally agitated voice rips right across the transmission,

"Yeah, _no shit_."

/-/

Ochako throws open the emergency exit with her heart in throat –how could she've _forgotten_ the Shuffling Someone from the floor above?—n' takes the scene in all at once: Fissure, still flailing helplessly where she left him; the Maven, frozen in an eerie contortion on the floor near a corner office; and Bakugou, twistin' up from a dropkick like a demented top n' lungin' forward to clap his hands point-blank into the face of the fourth n' final member of this motley crew, which sets off a concentrated explosion that appears to dissolve the other person's _entire head_ , and for one awful, reeling moment, Ochako thinks she just witnessed Bakugou brutally _murdering_ his opponent.

But then he sees her, and instead of the guilty shock she'd expect of a hero caught in the commission of a heinous crime, he grins like a demon and rockets toward her through the _incredibly_ thick cloud of sizzly smoke produced by his attack. By the time he breaks to a heel-diggin' halt in front of her, she's already put her sick suspicion to bed and shifted her focus to the tower of – _wet!_ —Bakugou currently dominating her field of vision.

It clicks in an instant: the damp office wreckage close by, her freshly soaked partner, that reckless-seemin' headshot and unusual amount o' _boiling_ steam –the sum of the parts is obvious.

Bakugou holds his hand out for her and rumbles, "Took you long enough," though there's no real reproach in it. She presses down _hard_ on the shakin' relief she feels to see him safe, if definitely not unscathed, and takes his hand without a second thought. With the gentle tug of his fingers against her wrist, he leads her forward and steps around behind her at the same time, endin' in a front-to-back configuration that makes her feel immediately like she's about to hit her weight limit, though she knows for a fact she's nowhere near it. "Wanna guess what this asshole's made of?" There's something gruffly _giddy_ about the question, but she's too distracted by the way his breath ghosts over the shell of her ear to wonder why.

"Water?" She answers faintly, feelin' parched and wishin' she had some for herself. When he doesn't respond, she chances a backward glance and finds him arrested by a dubious outrage.

"What the shit. You're psychic now?" Despite the circumstances, she can't help the puffed snort of laughter that wins free at his stony, brow-twitchin' glower, 'cause it's the same, apoplectic pomeranian schtick he pulls anytime she wears Deku merch in his presence. As she watches, the expression morphs into an angry pout, which she abso _lutely_ means to tease him about later, since Bakugou'll for sure enjoy hearin' he's capable of bein' _cute_.

"Lucky guess." Ochako smiles softly and draws in a deep, calming breath. The moment of levity helps dispel some of the odd tension in the air, and restores her focus. She has only a vague awareness of the warm hand he lays flat between her ribs, high on her stomach, to hold her in place against him, laser focused as she now is on makin' out the _not headless_ figure steppin' slow n' stilted toward the prone Maven through the lingering fog. And the low, gravel ' _Weird girl_ ' Bakugou murmurs into her hair barely registers at all, bein' that she's so focused on working out which among their inventory of combos he's lookin' to open with from this position. Her level of _pure focus_ at this moment is the stuff of legends.

Finally, "Ready?" He checks. Ochako answers with a question of her own,

"Whiplash?" A beat of silence, followed by a nettled,

"Obviously." She curls her fingers into a loose fist to float herself, then returns her hand to Bakugou's forearm (which she's only just realizing is missing its grenadier) to lift him off, too. Then, finally able to see well enough into the diminishing haze to make out the actual form of the mysterious fourth member, coughin' quietly into her elbow and perilously close to touching the Maven for who-knows-what purpose, Ochako tightens her grip on his arm and nods.

"Ready."

* * *

*Daruma - https(colon) wiki/Daruma_doll; aizawa has a hilarious, druken encounter with a daruma doll in the third light novel.

**Scovilles - the unit of measurement for the pungency/spiciness of food based on its 'capsaicin concentration.'

***'weird girl' - most def cribbed from what i now consider seminal kacchako: the lovely miss_chunks' 'don't ask, don't tell'

/-/

fyi: the next chapter is pure, unadulterated kacchako. i love action and emotional/situational context, my good chums, so there's inevitably an assload of both in whatever i write, but please allow me to reassure you, i'm only actually here in the first place for the _shipping_. I HAFF NOT FORGOT THE SHIPPING.

and: after extensive thought, i did decide to go with 'Ground Zero' for bakugou's hero name. i kept thinking i could avoid it (that's how his 'Mad Bomber' nickname came about it, in an effort not to have to mention his call sign), but eventually it felt silly to keep trying.

lastly: malware's quirk has been hacker/tech-based since the conception of this fic. la brava's quirk reveal from this week's release was just a happy coincidence. :) and to be fair, i don't think la brava's quirk has anything to do with _erasing_ anything.

/-/

[next chapter: things go to shit hilariously fast, uraraka wears bakugou like a seatbelt, and motivational screaming ensues.]


	5. the overriding imperative

EXCUSE ME WHAT THERE ARE SEVEN CHAPTERS NOW?! I NEVER AGREED TO THIS WHYYYYYYYYYY-

at this point, i think it's clear i've lost all control of this story. splinter fics comin' outta my damn ears, EXTRA, UNPLANNED CHAPTERS tackin' themselves on willy-nilly to the central property, vaguely-alluded to events that demand ADDITIONAL splinter material...ala karkat, i'm ready to flip right the hell off this meteor.

*ahem* long story short, there's one more chapter than i originally intended, mostly because _this_ chapter was getting too long, but also because i really just wanted to POST THIS JUNK ALREADY.

a couple things: you *will* need to read appendixes a & b (and 'sitting in a tree') to fully appreciate portions of this chapter.

also: yes, the wonder twins and ninja turtles (apparently) exist in this universe. although, perhaps their canon of campy feats is more autobiographical than comic fantasy? up to you, really.

* * *

ch5: the overriding imperative

Katsuki distinctively feels the deluge shaping itself into a dense, bubble prison around him, and starts ripping off superheated AP Shots to flash the liquid –probably water—into steam and fire himself the fuck _away_ , because fuck these assholes and their apparent obsession with shitting all over his oxygen.

As Katsuki blasts himself free of his liquid cage, the garbled bark of a floating Freak resolves itself on the back end of a frantic command:

"—the _**cuffs**_ , Mizu!" It doesn't take Ponytail-grade acuity to infer what Screamo Fuckass is hollering about (-freeing Bones), or to make the leap that 'Mizu' is _Kiyo_ Mizu,* a low-level goon only on his radar at all for the recent spate of city water systems failures she's suspected of causing. She's a transformation type, a water-based shapeshifter –but an unremarkable one, according to the available specs. What she's doing here, then, is anyone's guess. The rest of this company of relative heavy hitters've been playing at so-called 'noble terrorism' for months –or _years_ , in Malware's case, whose identity Uraraka's just revealed over the open line. Katsuki can make educated guesses about what role each of these other shits is meant to play, but unless the success of this operation somehow hinges on sabotaging the plumbing, he can only figure Mizu's here for reasons more personal than practical.

Murder Bubble either can't or doesn't try to hold her shape as he rockets himself in the Maven's general direction, setting himself up as deterrence to following the Freak's suicide order. Katsuki doesn't think there's any _real_ chance Mizu could open the cuffs even if she were able to reach the Maven –though obviously _that's_ not fucking happening— because the tech's encoded to respond only to him, and it's waterproof, besides. But depending on how specialized Mizu's abilities are and whether she's imaginative enough to think of it, he can't rule out the remote possibility that, in her current state, she might be capable of exerting sufficient pressure to crush the cuffs into useless scrap. He doesn't intend to let her close enough to put her ingenuity to the test.

Mizu doesn't go for the Maven, though, at least not right off the bat. Instead, she folds down into the heavy steam she herself is emanating, and disappears –mostly. The smoke's still sizzling directly off of her, so it's not hard to keep a rough vector on her location.

Under cover of noxious fog, Mizu attempts a series of actually clever sneak attacks, but she has no sense of follow-through, or movement economy, which as good as cancels out whatever small advantage she might've won for unpredictability. As a result, evasive maneuvers amount to little more than light cardio, and she doesn't even gain any ground for her efforts.

Uraraka and Jirou are rolling through the details of Malware's surrender and hand-off when the steam finally starts to clear, and he gets his first glimpse of the sloshing, gelatinous column Mizu's fashioned herself into, complete with a dozen or more thrashing, aquatic limbs, variously slapping or spearing or grabbing, all to virtually no effect. She's keeping him busy, but there's never a point in the ensuing scuffle where he determines she's a legitimate threat. She's too unpolished, too plainly inexperienced.

Katsuki lapses into playing defense to learn what he can about the properties and limitations of her quirk while he waits for Uraraka to get her ass back up here for the closing ceremonies. If Mizu makes an unexpected turn for the adept and deadly, he won't hesitate to steam her down to a fucking puddle, but with no concept how much of her he can safely vaporize without outright killing her, that's an emergency hatch he only intends to kick open as a last resort.

Uraraka, on the other hand, can wrap this shit up with a single touch, which is why _she's_ up for the hat trick. If Bubble's aqueous body is more or less beholden to the same physical rules as water (and it might not be, but he's got other ideas if that's the case), Uravity'll be able to give everyone a practical demonstration of what happens to water robbed of its gravity, and show Mizu how bubbles are fucking _done_.

Katsuki still clearly remembers his own lesson on the subject, and the strategically solitary future it fully fucking collapsed.

Unbidden, the memory of a too-bright, sucker punch smile: _"You wanna partner up?" There's a…_ weepy _quality to Uraraka's voice he doesn't understand until, "With_ me _?"_

In the nick of time—" _Package received_ ," sounds in his receiver, and snaps him out of whatever the hell idiot fucking stupor he's fallen into, just as Mizu cinches a fat tendril around both of his ankles and jerks him off his feet. He lets himself be hoisted upside-down and violently whipped across the office, using the torque of her throw and an effortless sequence of course-corrective blasts to alter his trajectory –utter fucking cakewalk next to the limits-of-human-endurance shit he and Uraraka pull for _warm ups_. " _Uravity_ —" Jirou again, urgently, " _Malware says we're dealing with a quartet, not a trio-!_ " Katsuki taps his earbud as he rounds an invisible curve and boomerangs back at Mizu, whose appearance is being rapidly, drastically reordered-

"Yeah, _no shit_ ," he barks over the line. Then, for the shittier Wonder Twin's ears only, a Ground Zero classic: "Heads up, fucker!" Katsuki charges in on an airborne dropkick that slides harmlessly through the now unmistakably human shape of the water, and dives at the floor into a backspin he twists out of –only to find himself staring into the newly fleshy, zits-aplenty face of a teenage mutant ninja brat in shitty knock-off Ground Zero cosplay.

 _Sick fuckin' luck, kid_ , he thinks blackly, disappointing any hopes Mizu might've entertained that she could shock him into fumbling the attack when he doesn't hesitate to clap an explosion directly into her face. He wouldn't waver anyway; it's not fucking in him. But there's added incentive to steaming up a smokescreen on the quick that layers itself into the mix, because the heavy metal crash of the emergency exit door being flung open means Uraraka's back, and that it's time to put this ass-handed operation to bed.

/-/

In the time Uraraka's been gone, Katsuki's taken an elbow to the ear, endured prolonged exposure to carbon monoxide, and escaped an attempted drowning perpetrated by one of his own goddamn fans. His head is fucking _pounding_ , which isn't helped by the ceaseless, background blare of the evacuation sirens, or the sporadic bitching of Fissure Fuckass. Consequently, he wouldn't describe his prevailing emotion as _pleased_.

Annoyed. What Katsuki is at this moment is _annoyed_.

Curiously, the foremost item on an ever-expanding list of aggravations encompasses _none_ of his most recent physical traumas. In fact, the _only_ item currently worth mentioning is Uraraka herself.

Uraraka, who's had such a smooth run she hasn't even broken a sweat; who ruins his bad match quirk reveal with her ass-pull of a 'lucky guess;' and who afterward laughs at his justifiable fucking outrage.

Uraraka, cool and focused and all business, like he should be but fucking _isn't_ , because he's wet and miserable and she's warm as a goddamn ember and still reeks of sunshine –and how the shit is that even _possible_ with all the smoke and blood in the air?

Fucking _witchcraft_ is how.

"Weird girl." Katsuki grumbles, his overwhelming sensory awareness of her briefly eclipsing the urgency of this do-or-die moment –not that that's fucking _new_ , just –as usual- irritating, inexcusable, and extremely dangerous. Like everything the fuck else about her. "Ready?" He checks, impatient to get this show on the road and Uraraka the fuck _away from him_.

But then, out of the blue: "Whiplash?" She wonders, which trips him up all over again, because he can't even _remember_ the last time she asked about an upcoming move-set. Even in training, there's virtually no discussion about approach. They're usually moving _way_ too fast to bother, and even when they're not, they've been at this for nearly three friggin' years: they've developed keen interpersonal instincts, and a considerable sense of synchrony in both judgment and purpose, so there's no _need_ for hashing shit out. Fuck knows that wasn't the case when they first linked up –fucking _everything_ was an endless, infuriating negotiation. But now –and maybe this was inevitable, given his own proclivities—their combat style is highly improvisational, and relies on each of them knowing the other well enough to read subtle, unspoken cues, and to chart and anticipate one another's strategies as they evolve over the course of a given confrontation.

"Obviously." He grates, freshly annoyed that he doesn't know what this uncharacteristic slip _means_ , only that her hand is definitely tipping.

"Ready." Uraraka affirms, as the poorly-understood force tethering him to the ground comes undone.

Finally, ignoring the mild nausea her quirk routinely causes and the traditional flip-kicking chest pain she provokes by the nothing fucking act of _touching_ him, Katsuki remembers they're here to do their motherfucking jobs, and forcibly turns his attention back to the teenager whose day they're about to ruin.

\\-\

The steam, unsurprisingly, is an excellent spur-of-the-moment obstruction: because of it, Mizu fails to reach the Maven, even with the extra few seconds she gains while he's busy pulling his head out of his own ass. She gets close, but she's still wearing her fleshy veneer, so she has to grope her way blindly through the choking fog, wasting precious time. It occurs to him she might've hit some kind of endurance or time limit, temporarily preventing her from going liquid, and makes a note to check the strength of his impending stun shot.

Then, Katsuki tosses back a modest explosion that sends Uraraka and himself absolutely fucking _tearing_ through the intervening space; he's hitting the close-quarters insta-stop before Mizu even fully processes they're coming –which is arguably the central conceit of the maneuver. He's personally more partial to the flanking punishment portion of the program, but finishing the move before their target has any real chance to react is always the goal. And 'finishing' in this case requires only that Uraraka get her catspaw fingers on Mizu, because liquid or solid, the kid's quirk amounts to dick and shit in zero G.

Katsuki back handsprings off Uraraka's shoulders as he releases her into a forward tumble, and cracks off two controlled bursts, one to arc him upward, and another to flip him back down, behind Mizu. There's a sudden, translucent quality to her skin that probably means she's re-liquefying –wisely, since all she's got time enough to choose between is embracing her inner-fucking-space bubble or taking a brain-rattling stun grenade to the back of the head. Although it's also possible Mizu has no idea what Uraraka's quirk can do to her, and thinks she's choosing fight or flight instead—

– _what in fuck_? With all the other shit he's keeping track of, it takes a tick to register, but whatever the hell's making the air taste electric, and acrid, triggers the memory of that one time Denki nearly murdered their entire graduating class at the beach, when the dumbshit had a sneezing fit in the ocean and almost flash-fried the lot of them. It's the stink of sharper-than-usual ozone, of an electrochemical reaction _he isn't generating_.

A gut-dropping hunch draws Katsuki's incredulous gaze to the Maven, and sure the fuck enough, her eyes are dimly glowing, and her nose is pouring like a motherfucking faucet. A _single finger_ , attached to the uncuffed but _dislocated_ arm, is _**barely**_ _fucking twirling_.

He knows exactly what she's doing.

The given ingredients make it impossible for Bones to be doing anything other than _decomposing Mizu_ , because –just like he fucking wanted—Mizu's phasing back into water, and water is made of bonded hydrogen and oxygen molecules, and the process of splitting those molecules into discrete atoms creates an electrical charge that smells unmistakably like that same process happening in reverse, as it had when Denki accidentally did his level fucking best to electrocute all his sea-bound classmates. If Katsuki's remembering his organic chemistry correctly (and spoiler alert: of course he fucking is), the primary real world application for this process is to produce the infinitely fucking combustible: _hydrogen gas_.

It's too late to put the pin back in the grenade, so to speak; his fist's already fucking exploding. The detonation is _happening_ , and it's going to be fucking _cataclysmic_ –and for the third time in his life since an insane person fell out of the sky and saved him with a dumpster from a pair of would-be assassins, time compresses and seems to slow.

In the fractured flash of a familiar nightmare, he sees Uraraka, limp and pale and fucking lifeless, silent and still and _**gone**_ —

" _Unfortunately, we believe it's unlikely she'll ever reawaken—_ "

 _ **Fuck**_ _no._ _ **Never again**_. An entire universe of meaningless minutia instantly evaporates in the face of the overriding imperative to _get Uraraka to safety_ , _**now**_ , _by any means possible_ , and his body fucking _moves_ —

A millisecond after his fist discharges, the hand still out-flung behind him fires to send him flying _through_ Mizu as she invisibly unravels and begins to explode –fucking _spectacularly_. Uraraka's there, just on the other side, fingers extended for bubbling and already partially sunk into aqueous flesh when Katsuki crashes into her. Never more glad of his broken-stat reflexes, he opens a hole in the floor, rockets them both through it, then grabs Uraraka, locking her against him with one arm cinched around her waist and the other clamping either side of her head between his chest and hand to mitigate the potential for sonic damage –all in half a damn blink.

Katsuki can _feel_ his eardrums rupturing as the force of the blast wave knocks into them, propelling them even faster. Disoriented by the vestibular trauma, he almost doesn't react fast enough to punch through the next floor before they splatter against it –let alone the two floors below that. At some point in the unfolding chaos, Uraraka's hip and boot rockets kick on automatically to help stabilize them, which successfully pulls them off their current collision course with a _fifth floor_ , but also has them briefly spiraling across the darkened office like a shit-faced fucking cruise missile and gracelessly wiping out in a tangled, painful heap of limbs near _this_ floor's glass-walled conference room.

Vaguely, he's aware they've utterly fucking annihilated a water cooler, but it's hard to muster even a passing fuck about it –or _any_ of the bankrupting destruction they've just wrought— because Uraraka's safely ensconced in his arms, warm and breathing and _alive_.

Katsuki steeps in haughty triumph as the world fades to black.

* * *

*'Kiyo Mizu' – literally 'Pure/Clear Water,' as in the beautiful 'Kiyomizu-dera,' a gorgeous UNESCO world heritage site in kyoto. [en (period) wikipedia (period) org / wiki / Kiyomizu-dera] -remove spaces and change '(period)' to '.' this is the only way this dang site would let me include the url.

/-/

so...things actually took a minute before they 'went to shit:' two supplementary material fics spun out of this *one chapter,* and then the fourth villain got more screen time than i intended, buuuuut technically speaking, once we got back to where chapter four left off, things DID go to shit preeeeeeetty f*ckin' quick. it's all about perspective, is what i'm saying. i'm grasping at straws for justification, is what i'm saying. I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED EITHER, IS WHAT I'M SAYING.

in any event, even though most of the first part of this chapter is heavy on the ground zero action, at this stage in the continuing saga of Bakugou's Adventures in Head Trauma, he basically never stops playing six degrees of uraraka anyway, so hopefully that was enough to tide you over 'til uraraka actually showed back up and bakugou's higher order functions shut the hell off in favor of 'holy fuck she's so soft and warm and smart this is BULLSHIT.'

and: 'In the fractured flash of a familiar nightmare...' -yes, there's a fic in the offing that'll drop us headfirst into _this_ angst-ridden incident, and give us some much-needed insight into *why,* when bakugou and uraraka are -three years into their partnership- _obviously_ hot for each other, they haven't hooked up yet.

ALSO. part of the reason this chapter took SO LONG to finish (apart from the distracting, accidental appendices and my general slowness) is RESEARCH. specifically, SCIENCE RESEARCH. i ended up doing a butt-freaking-ton of digging into things like electrolysis of water (the process mentioned above used primarily in the production of hydrogen gas), hydrogen explosions (i'm definitely on some kinda government list now), and all the various potential chemical Events i might make happen with the atomic ingredients at hand. it was actually super interesting, but i went down some pretty intense rabbit holes and got lost there for a while...

a particularly fun reference video i ended up watching a handful of times: [youtube (period) com / watch?v=qOTgeeTB_kA]

ALSOALSO (last thing, i promise): drizzydoodles was 1,000,000% my muse for this chapter. i *love* the way she draws kacchako, because HOLYF*CKINGYASQUEEN she's goodsogood, but in particular the last page of her recent 12-pg comic was EXCELLENT visual reference for how bakuturd and the lovely'raka *fit together* when compelled to surprise!smash into one another. check this amazing sh*t out, if you haven't already: [drizzydoodles (period) tumblr (period) com / post / 174154509146 / more-drizzy-what-the-hell-compelled-you-to]

thanks for waiting, y'all~

/-/

[next chapter: uraraka refuses to cry, one villain's less dead than they probably should be, and motivational screaming ensues. for real this time. maybe. hopefully?]


	6. strange and poignant

only two weeks since the last chapter went live? this might be my new record best.

I HAD SO MUCH FUN WRITING THIS, Y'ALL.

* * *

Katsuki's on his back, weighted down again by Earth's normal force. For several unnerving seconds, the only sound he can hear is a high, piercing frequency. Through swimming vision and the acute, relentless ache of his motherfucking _everything_ , he casts his gaze into the darkness, trying to see if anyone's coming after them, wondering if it's possible anyone up there –namely, the wayward brat with top-notch taste in heroes—survived the blast he noped the hell out of there to escape.

As though from far away, "…ou…" reaches him as a dull echo. Just as dully, through a deep fog of unreality, he becomes aware of Uraraka, hands pawing at his damn face, hair poured around him like a dark, liquid curtain, eyes wet with unshed tears and big enough to swallow planets, and –is she on his fucking _lap_?— suddenly it's years ago and she's falling out of the sky and into his arms and she's weightless and breathing hard and he's fending off the latest crop of Variations' augmented enforcers* and his arm is fucked and she's got her tongue in his _mouth_ —

"Bakugou!" Finally breaks through, but her voice is tinny, and too low. " _Please, speak to me-!_ " She pleads, choking off on a sob. He violently smothers the impossibly still-vivid sensation of that fucking catastrophe of a kiss from their first tag-team victory, rationalizing the phantasm as the fault of all that head trauma he's recently suffered.

Ultimately, "Get the hell off'a me." Is all he can settle on biting out, closing his eyes to the sight of Uraraka's damn moon face filling his whole fucking horizon, because _shit_ is this ever _not the fucking time_.

/-/

Bakugou takes the brunt of the surprise blast he miraculously anticipates; he's got her wrapped up and the both of 'em craterin' through the floor _just_ as the person-shaped mass o' water spontaneously erupts with a concussive ' ** _BANG!_** ' that hurts her ears even smooshed as they are between the palm of an always sweaty hand n' the hard planes of Bakugou's chest.

It won't be 'til long after this mess is over and done with that she understands how or why this disastrous explosion happens, but the notion Bakugou might be at fault for it never even occurs to her. No way he'd jeopardize so many lives –his n' hers included—unless the situation was dire enough to warrant desperate measures. And it _wasn't_ – far as she could tell, after she bubbled the last of member of this ragtag crew –which she'd been in the middle of doing when Bakugou slammed into her—that'd be that and they'd be _done_. They'd round everyone up and hand 'em off to the police, help Riot and Jack finish clearin' the building, and then meet up with Deku's team to either debrief or, if necessary, assist with the aftermath of the evacuation order. But the riskiest bits'd be over.

Instead, they're smashin' through floor after floor, pushed to a dangerous velocity by the very explosion Bakugou's running from, 'til her booster rockets finally sense she's on a runaway plummet and activate to reassert her equilibrium. Unfortunately, they're fallin' so hard n' so fast that the sudden propulsion doesn't right them so much as send 'em corkscrewin' wild across the new floor they're on, which only ends when they collide –Bakugou-first—into a water cooler.

Dizzy from the hyper-speed insanity of the last few seconds, Ochako drops her technique and tries to blink away the world's sick, tilty twirl as she scrambles up the length of the body beneath her, which has just gone worryingly slack. His arms, 'til now like iron bands around her, wilt and fall away, and his head lolls insensibly.

"Bakugou…?" She tries, tentative, swallowin' back panic-thick bile when he fails to respond. If he's out more'n a few seconds, there's a good chance somethin' serious is wrong, so she's gotta get him _conscious_ , _pronto_ — "C'mon, wake up!" He doesn't flinch. _Refusing_ to cry, Ochako takes a deep, shaky breath and starts feelin' around his head n' neck for any obvious external injuries. All that jumps out at her right away is the small trickle of blood runnelin' out his left ear – a sight that makes her feel guilty in a… _fuzzy_ kinda way, since she'd likely have a busted drum or two of her own if he hadn't had the presence of mind or inclination to protect her. "Bakugou!" She cries, horror startin' to seep in, " _Please, speak to me-!_ " _Finally_ , his long lashes flutter open, and she can't help the high, hysterical sound she makes.

"Get the hell off'a me." He snaps, eyes screwin' shut. Immediately frantic, thinking he's slippin' back under, Ochako bows over him, lowers tremblin' fingers to his cheeks –and pinches the bejeezus out of 'em.

Desperately, "Stay with me—!" She starts, and just as abruptly stops, 'cause whoops, turns out he wasn't tryin' to pass back out on her after all! And he looks _pissed_ about the manhandling. 'Cept, with his cheeks pulled out like they are, his glower's more… _endearin'ly silly_ than she's used to. A manic giggle rolls out of her, and her heart _aches_ with relief, 'cause if he's lucid enough to be irritated by harmless overtures of genuine concern, she figures he's prob'ly gonna be okay.

" **Oi**." Bakugou menaces through exposed teeth (since his lips're comically drawn back with his cheeks), glarin' murder 'til Ochako remembers _she's_ the reason his face looks this way, and lets him go, suddenly sheepish.

Then, she asks his least favorite question: "Are you…okay?" It comes out stilted, 'cause now she's not in tunnel vision freak out mode anymore and has the chance to really check him out, she sees he actually looks pretty rough. Candidly, "You look awful."

Indignant, "Fuck you, I look cut-ass goddamn rugged." Another snigger spazzes out of her, 'cause maybe she's more rattled by this whole affair than she cares to admit.

As patronizin'ly as possible, "Of _course_ you do." Ochako punctuates this playful condescension with a couple light taps against his pinch-rosy cheek. That's all it's meant to be, too, a fleeting, teasing, token touch. But her gaze catches again on the thin spill o' blood forkin' out of his ear, the paltry trickle belyin' the undoubtedly _terrible_ pain he's in on her behalf, and before she knows it, she's obliging the raw, clawin' impulse to slide her hand oh-so-gently along the curve of his jaw and sink her fingers –'cept her pinky—into the wet, bristly plush at his nape. With a strutted, steady thumb, she carefully wipes away the blood at the lower margin of his ear. "Thank you for protecting me." She says, with utmost sincerity.

After, certain she's tryin' his patience with all her heartfelt gratitude and unsolicited handling, she spares him a watery smile and makes to 'get the hell off,' as previously commanded. By _him_. Which's why it's so startling that the _instant_ she tries to pull back, Bakugou abruptly reacts to stop her. He catches her by the forearm, grip assertive without bein' forceful, unmistakably insistent she stay put, but lettin' her know she's got the out if she wants it.

She doesn't take it.

Ochako stares down at him in rapt silence, not darin' to guess what he'll do next, but unable to quash the budding, wretched, _ridiculous_ hope that maybe, just **_maybe_** …Jirou's not chasin' ghosts.

And then. Warm pressure at her hip; the damp, heavy slide of fabric, shiftin'; the bunch n' flex of core muscles, tightening; and the delirious, berserker lurch of her heart, madly poundin', as Bakugou raises himself into a seated position with predator poise and _tectonic_ consequence.

Ochako lets him guide her up n' scoot her back onto her knees, _very much in his lap_ , an' he's still got her by the arm n' the hip and he's so close they're breathin' the same air and he looks… _so intense_. Angry, definitely, but also some combination of confrontational an' expectant n'…determined, possibly?

Before she loses her nerve, she lays her free hand over the ridge of his shoulder, and feels a telling, convulsive twitch of the fingers at her hip. And there's this suspended beat of a moment between 'em, strange and poignant, that leaves her feelin' dizzy all over again, n' tingly, and terrified that he's concussed, or lookin' for any sign her organs were liquefied in the shockwave of that bananas explosion, or that _she's_ the one who actually passed out, and this's just some crazy fever dream, 'cause there's _no way in hell_ Bakugou's actually leanin' up—

 _"Alright, you two, enough with the suspense already –okay up there?"_ Kirishima's voice has a cold water shower effect, and sends her flyin' to her feet in guilty shock. This time, Bakugou doesn't try to stop her. _"Jack said you were both at least alive and I should give you a minute, so I waited one whole minute—"_

 _"Forty-five seconds, tops—"_ Jirou quips.

 _"—but you guys still haven't checked in, and that explosion was_ nuts _, so can we confirm no one's like, seriously injured already?"_

"We're fine, shitlips." Bakugou rumbles, at the same time Ochako says,

"We're okay, I promise." Kirishima breathes an audible sigh of relief. "What about y'all? And –oh goodness, _please_ tell me there wasn't anyone else up here—!"

 _"Everyone's fine, don't worry. Most of the personnel on the upper floors hit the elevator or stairwell as soon as the sirens started up and came down on their own; we've mostly been rounding up the stragglers –and Malware—and everybody's here in the lobby now. We were about to lead the way to safety when we felt the explosion."_ Jirou explains, easily an' concisely answerin' all of Ochako's questions before she has the chance to ask 'em. _"What happened up there?"_ Ochako looks to Bakugou to supply the explanation, 'cause the truth is, she doesn't know herself.

He meets her gaze head-on, eyes narrowed. "Nuclear motherfucking fission happened, Earlobes. And we can talk about how _that_ happened after I get my hands on that pink-headed fucking devil woman and have a day of damn reckoning about her shoddy fuckin' tech."

 _"You're gonna take on_ Hatsume _? Please can I come watch?"_ Kirishima ribs, knowin' full well he's pokin' the bear. Incredibly, Bakugou doesn't rise to the bait. Ignores his best friend completely, as a matter of fact. Or maybe Bakugou doesn't fully...hear him?

"Long story short, I canary-in-a-cold-mined us the fuck outta there, and now I can't hear dick."

 _"Do you really_ miss _hearin' dicks, though…?"_ Jirou heckles. Bakugou definitely hears that one, and fumes in mortification, palms crackin' off like sparklers.

"Your days are fuckin' numbered, Wiretap."

 _"Glad you're still in one piece, Sparky."_

Kirishima again, _"Yeah, man, if all you've got to show for that insane blast is a busted ear, I'd say major kudos are in order."_ Bakugou tuts dismissively while Ochako resists the compulsion to tell their teammates he's more banged up than he's lettin' on. If he wanted 'em to know, she reminds herself, he'd say somethin'. And anyway, _she_ knows, and she's keepin' close watch.

"Jack?" She starts, tryin' to fix 'em all back on the mission. "It's…probably a longshot, but on the off-chance there're any survivors, could I get'cha to listen in for any signs o' life above us?"

Snappin' to purpose, _"You got it, Uravity –hang tight."_ The line briefly closes while Jirou puts her expertly-honed, incredibly sensitive quirk to work. Mindful of the partial hearing loss he's just copped to, Ochako waves at Bakugou to catch his eye instead of callin' out to him.

"I'll head up to check things out after Jirou gives us a read on what to expect. You stay here and—"

"Not on your fuckin' life, sweet cheeks." He interrupts, trottin' out a nickname he seldom ever uses and starin' her down in blatant challenge. Bein' the object of Bakugou's undivided attention always triggers her fluster reflex, but now, on the heels of that too-fresh _Almost_ , the effect's about a zillion times worse and…has…has the air always had a _pulse_?

Hot and **very** bothered, she breaks his gaze.

Clearin' her throat, "Fine. But I'm taking point." His answering grin's a wicked promise that hits her like a hot jab to the gut.

 _"Uravity,"_ Jirou says without warning, startlin' her out of her wits, _"I_ am _getting one heartbeat, but it's crazy weak and fading fast."_ Ochako swiftly changes gears –an easy enough thing to do when there's a life at stake—and beelines for the hole in this floor's ceiling, Bakugou in lockstep behind her.

"We're on it, Jack, thank—" She begins, but Jirou cuts across her.

 _"Hold that thought. Something's wrong—!"_

Whatever Jirou says after that is muted by a sinister, thunderous ' _ **CRACK!**_ ' that splits the sky and echoes into the night. The accompanying seismic shiver of the _entire building_ and the apocalyptic cacophony of glass shattering and floor beams screaming and concrete rupturing that follows can only mean one thing: Fissure. Fissure's the survivor with the weak an' fadin' heartbeat, and he's doing what she's positive he meant to do all along: he's razin' the Registry.

"Mother _fucker_!" Bakugou bellows, undoubtedly comin' to the same conclusion.

The frightful cracking continues, and the nightmare intensifies as a cascade of structural failures ensues and the building begins to moan and sway. At this point, collapse is unavoidable, and _imminent_.

In a hurry to either get 'em both outta here, or more likely, to go after Fissure Freak and get all _three_ of 'em outta here, Bakugou fastens her to his side and prepares for blast-off. But where she'd usually take her cue and peel away their gravity for max speed, instead she stares numbly into her open hands, petrified at what she knows she has to do –or at least, _try_ to do.

Maybe 'cause she grew up shadowin' her parents at construction sites, determined to make herself useful asap, it's not hard to run a few quick numbers: if there're sixty-somethin' stories in this building, forty plus o' those directly above them; and if the Registry itself weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-25,000 tons; then even if she factors in a generous margin for error, and _even if_ she only has to worry about what'll be comin' down on top of 'em and not what's under her feet, she's _still_ lookin' at between 10-15,000 **tons** of steel and concrete and office equipment. Which is _impossibly_ beyond her weight limit.

Filled with cold dread, Ochako goes into a tailspin, certain this is the end, that they're either gonna die or manage to escape by the skin o' their teeth and watch, helpless, as the Registry crumbles and crushes Kirishima n' Jirou n' Malware and who-knows-how-many city blocks' worth of people, then kicks up a toxic debris cloud several kilometers wide in every direction, killin' countless more.

In the grips of mortal terror, these're the only outcomes she can envision.

Until Bakugou reaches over and flicks her _right between the eyes –_ ** _hard_**.

" _Ow_!"

"Any goddamn day now, Uraraka!" Bakugou yells over the din. He's still waitin' on her to float them so he knows she's ready, so they can _go_. There's not a shred of fear in the sharp wedge of a grin he's wearin'; just impatience, and implacable certainty. Because to him, winning's not an option: it's an inevitability. And if she's not gonna be outpaced and left behind, if she wants to _truly_ feel like his necessary complement and equal, the same's gotta be true for her.

Over the piercing ' _screeeeee!_ ' of foldin' metal, bucklin' under extraordinary strain, "I know what I have to do!" After she says it, she feels lighter, like she's already floating. Resolve crystallizin', she twists up in his hold and kisses his cheek, easy as breathin', an' steps back, trusting he'll let her go. He does, starin' down at her in open shock. Without the luxury of enough time to be embarrassed, she smiles softly, turns her eyes to the ceiling, an' activates her quirk. "Wish me luck!" Ochako calls, breathin' deep.

 _I can_ ** _do_** _this._

/-/

Uraraka says she 'knows what she has to do' with buoyant self-assurance, and Katsuki believes her. But before he can work out what she might have up her sleeve, she plants one on him in an ambush for the fucking ages, and short-circuits the part of his brain responsible for critical thinking. So when she slaps on her boots and rockets for the ceiling, at first he's confused.

Then, as comprehension slowly dawns, his ability to parse reality switches fully the fuck off, because there is _no way in hell_ Uraraka actually means to **_float a motherfucking skyscraper_** —

* * *

*Variations: full call-sign, 'Variations on a Theme;' a 'big boss' type villain who is _barely_ foreshadowed in chapter one of 'this moronic episode.' hint: the line that sneakily refers to Variations in 'tme:' _'He makes a mental note, and an aggravated hypothesis.'_ with the name and the 'mental note' bakugou makes, anyone care to venture a guess as to what Variations' quirk might be…?

references for this chapter (because i have a *very hard time* visualizing things, which is why the plentiful, *incredible art* for this ship is such a blessing):

(THE moment in this chapter was based around this *amazing* piece by akeemi-chan:) twitter (period) com (slash) Akeemi_chan / status / 841118636857274369

(but the face bakugou's making during THE moment looks more like this:)  
keiid (period) tumblr (period) com (slash) tumblr post / 163999461196 / kacchako-doodle

/-/

[next chapter: bakugou has an epiphany.]


	7. a feat equal

thank you to bran ren 7 on the kacchako discord for helping me out of my funk a week or so back. i CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH.

ALSO, feel free to join in on the endless fun that is this chapter's Grammar Horror Scavenger Hunt! keep your eagle eyes peeled for the longest and most epic run-on sentence this side of charlie dickens, a frightful pair of coupled 'to's, and an _entire section_ of uncomfortable tense squatting!

now, without further ado, enjoy this full chapter of bakugou being unabashedly amazed by uraraka!

* * *

The Registry cleaves apart with the many-timbred, blood-curdling roar of an eldritch fucking god, come to usher in the end of goddamn days.

There's no question who's responsible, or which of the three villains managed to survive the Maven's improvised hydrogen bomb: it's Fissure Freak, fucking _obviously_ , being his best radical revolutionary self by going out in a senseless blaze of dumbfuck glory, and deciding to take the Registry down with him.

"Mother _fucker_!" Katsuki rages, further incensed when his bellowed curse is swallowed by the myriad clamorous convulsions of the imploding high-rise.

The toll on the city when –not ' _if_ '— the building collapses is going to be catastrophic in the fucking extreme, though substantially fewer lives will be lost than if they hadn't taken all necessary precautions and fired up the evacuation alarm minutes prior – _specifically_ because this mass-murdering fuckwad is here. Nevertheless, evacuations always take time and often give rise to pockets of pandemonium where forward progress stymies, and the path of destruction is going to be fucking _massive_ , so it's incredibly unlikely everyone will make it clear of the fallout. Meaning there _will_ be a human cost, a _big one_ –and that's to say nothing of the monstrous infrastructural transformation the ward itself is about to undergo.

But Katsuki doesn't have time to consider the full, gruesome scope of the consequences of Fissure's insane, last-gasp action, because he's got more immediate concerns – the most pressing of which is _getting_ to the terrorist prick, to peel his dying ass off whatever surface he's glommed on to and disrupt the effects of his quirk, and maybe, _possibly_ prevent the total collapse Katsuki privately suspects it's already too late to stop.

Also, regardless of what else happens, he's got to get Uraraka out of here safe and sound, and trust that Eijirou and Earlobes are smart enough between the two of them to've accessed the city plans for the nearest building with a fortified basement and hustled their asses to safety, with their civilian charges in tow.

To these ends, Katsuki reaches out and sweeps Uraraka into a one-armed hold, fixing her at his left side with his forearm slung low and loose over her opposite hip, confident she'll read this as a prompt to cast off their gravity and prepare for takeoff. He braces himself for the coming queasiness and gingerly taps his receiver on with his free hand.

"Oi, Shitty Hair!" He calls.

Eijirou merrily –if breathlessly— responds, _"You're a go for the Riot!"_ Then, to an audience that clearly doesn't include him, _"C'mon…doing great, everybody! Let's kee…moving -you…an do it!"_

"You better be headed for cover, fuckbrain –it's about to start raining Armageddon out there!" With so much noise coming from every quarter and his own hearing compromised, Katsuki can hardly make out Eijirou's reply.

" _Shindou's branch office…few blocks aw…headed over now! Jack pulled…lueprints, and…looks like…mergency bunker! We'll check…when we're secure!"_ He hears enough to get the gist, and breathes out in hushed relief even as he realizes Uraraka still hasn't activated her quirk. An irked peek reveals his partner's…spaced out, and frozen in place.

"Watch your ass, and hurry the fuck up!" Katsuki distractedly snaps, as he arranges countermeasures for Uraraka's sudden, mystifying preoccupation with her hands by tucking the tip of his middle finger under his thumb and readying to strike. He positions his hand directly in her line of sight, affording her the opportunity to snap out of it on her own, but she's too engrossed to notice.

" _We'll…careful!"_ Eijirou promises, a smile in his voice. Then, _"You be caref…oo! Love ya', buddy~!"_ Rolling his eyes at this, merely the most recent example of Eijirou's always effusive outpourings of affection, Katsuki determines there's no more time to waste and lets his finger fly.

" _Ow_!" Uraraka squeals, batting defensively at his hand and scowl-pouting up at him, adorably affronted. Too overwhelmed by present circumstances to guard against the indignant, chipmunk puff of her cheeks, his mouth kicks up into a grin he immediately attempts to blunt with a furrowed brow.

Agitatedly tapping his comm back off, "Any goddamn day now, Uraraka!" He yells over the protracted shriek of folding metal.

For a tense bundle of seconds they _really don't have_ to spare, Uraraka stares at him, searching for fuck-knows-what, 'til she evidently finds whatever the shit she's looking for and suddenly declares she 'knows what she has to do' with buoyant self-assurance. Katsuki believes her, and he's ready to follow her lead, but before he can work out what she might have up her sleeve, she curls into him and presses her lips to his cheek in an ambush for the fucking ages, short-circuiting the part of his brain responsible for critical thinking. So when she slaps her boots on and rockets for the ceiling, at first he's confused.

Then, as comprehension slowly dawns, his ability to parse reality switches fully the fuck off, because there is _no way in hell_ Uraraka actually means to _ **float a motherfucking skyscraper**_ —

/-/

Katsuki has no frame of reference for how many thousands –or tens of thousands— of tons of building they've got above them. He is positive, however, that it's _assloads_ more than Uraraka's current weight limit, which sits somewhere in the mid-to-upper hundreds of tons – or a couple thousand tons at an outlying, _absolute maximum_.

And that maximum was hard-fucking-won, to boot: the result of years of intensive, near-constant training and the anomalous, limit-breaking bridge collapse.

At the tentative beginning of their partnership, Uraraka was already months into an experimental program of keeping herself afloat all day (and night, while she slept), every day. ( _Also_ all day, every day, whether she was on patrol or filling out paperwork at the office or getting hammered under his _kotatsu_ * with some ever-shifting configuration of their mutual idiots, she picked up the irritating habit of floating basically anything not fucking nailed down –including, periodically, every non-furniture item in his apartment. On more than one occasion, he returned to his revolving fucking door of a home to find a pile of lush assholes sprawled out on his living room floor in professional goddamn disarray, and his _entire wardrobe_ adhered to the ceiling of his room.) She kept this exercise up for over a year, until she could use her quirk on herself for any length of time without getting sick or feeling taxed in the slightest.

Acclimatizing herself to her quirk's biggest and longest-lived drawback was obviously her primary objective, so this accomplishment alone was significant and worth celebrating. But Uraraka achieved considerably more in the course of her self-imposed training than she anticipated: to start, by virtue of going about her daily life in zero-g, she developed a proficiency for weightless, three-dimensional maneuvering that proved invaluable in the establishment of their joint combat style. By the close of her experiment, high-speed, sans-gravity acrobatics came to her every bit as comfortably and naturally as standing or walking upright under Earth-normal gravitational conditions.

Also, unquestionably as a result of her aforementioned habit of compulsively floating gym equipment and home appliances and the contents of other people's closets all the livelong goddamn day, Uraraka worked out how to adjust the pull of gravity on a given target incrementally instead of all at once, at a precision rate of her choosing. This technique, she later revealed, was one she'd been fruitlessly struggling to unlock since their sophomore year at U.A., though she'd exhausted every method she could think of to crack it and had all but given up hope that it was even possible. Turns out all she needed was the fortitude to endure a hellish, year-long stint of 24/7, gut-ravaging, perpetually nauseous discomfort, and the willingness to make it worse still by tapping off the gravity of and dicking around with anything and freaking _everything_ she could lay her grubby little mitts on.

Technical gains aside, though, Uraraka also _dramatically_ increased her weight limit. More than dramatically, even. Not long after she returned to the earth, so to speak, she commissioned his rocket transport services for an undisclosed 'beach emergency,' and he flew them to the scene to watch her lift a beached, adult _blue whale_ back into the sea –and those fuckers top out at, what, a hundred-fifty tons? Two hundred? Last he knew—before that afternoon, anyway— Uraraka's max was _half_ that.

And she'd only grown stronger since; hell, following that rush hour bridge collapse from a few years back, she'd reached a new threshold of around **six hundred tons** (which, for the record, is _batshit_ ), where Katsuki thought she'd plateaued until earlier _this_ year, when he witnessed her hauling restaurants and shopfronts, four or five at a time, up from the depths of the huge fuck-off canyon Fissure Freak installed in downtown Hosu. Only then did it occur to him she must've crossed that threshold ages ago, and that she likely never plateaued at all.

The takeaway, ultimately, is that when a situation demands the inconceivable, Uraraka invariably rises to the occasion and fucking _delivers_ , often in patent defiance of both expectation and long odds. In this way, she has consistently reinforced what he's known since they were fifteen and she stepped into the festival arena and tried to murder him for sport: that underestimating her abilities is for chumps and shitheads.

And yet, confident as he is that he knows good and goddamn well how much she's capable of, here he stands, in out-and-out fucking _amazement_ of this thing she's doing. Clearly, he was not aware she was capable of **this**.

Although in his defense, that's only because _**this**_ shit is fifteen million kinds of _not fucking possible_.

/-/

Uraraka hits the ceiling with a flash of hot pink and the impassioned, rallying cry of a seasoned yakuza enforcer –" _OOORRRRRAAAAAAA_!"— as micro-fractures spider along the walls of whatever the hell floor they're on, and the glass of the windows and the conference room at their back ominously clinks and crunches, threatening to succumb to the immense pressure and explode outward in a deadly spray of jagged shards.

It's _happening_ – the walls are buckling, the ceiling's about to cave, and he and Uraraka are seconds away from turning a page and starting a new chapter as the world's flattest pro heroes. Katsuki could grab her and torpedo them out the same way they broke in earlier; he figures they should have at least enough time to clear the closest window before they're crushed and buried under a mountain of rubble; but, as he realizes in slow, mind-snapping astonishment that Uraraka has just activated her quirk on _the Registry itself_ , pure, adrenaline-soaked insanity has him gritting his teeth excitedly and obstinately rooting himself to the spot, though every fiber of his being frantically exhorts him to cut his losses and fucking _**run**_.

Katsuki knows in his _bones_ this is a thing that _cannot be done_ –by Uraraka or Deku or motherfucking _anyone_. Nevertheless, for reasons lacking any _actual fucking reason_ , he concludes he _has_ to see how this plays out, and recklessly wagers both their lives on the –legitimately crazy and by all appearances outright fucking suicidal—gamble that Uraraka _just might_ be able to pull off the impossible, after all.

It's the stupidest, most ass-headed fucking decision he's ever fucking made, and it's looking more certain by the goddamn second that it's the _last_ fucking decision he's ever going to make, because the wall fronting the stairwell is cracking open like an egg and ponderously shuddering apart before his very eyes, and he suddenly has a narrow but unobstructed view of the night sky, blanketed by dark clouds, and he is about to fucking _**die**_ , yet somehow –he's betting on account of the head trauma— all he can do is grin like a fucking maniac and stare, transfixed, as the _best_ decision he's ever made screams herself hoarse and pushes up against the ceiling so hard she's fully shaking and pours her unconditional fucking _everything_ into becoming the fulcrum point for one of the tallest goddamn buildings in the country.

In light of his imminent pulverization, Katsuki permits the private admission that this is the hottest shit he's ever fucking seen.

/-/

Normally, Uraraka's is an all-or-nothing kind of quirk, so the matter of whether or not she can float the Registry should've been settled the instant she touched it. Except, Katsuki assumes, in this case she's probably focusing on 'feeling out,' isolating, and stripping the gravity away from only as much of the upper part of the structure as she _absolutely needs_ _to_ to keep the whole thing upright –a substantially slower and more tedious process, and right now obviously a colossal fucking struggle.

He's watched her do this with liquids countless times: submerge her fingertips, determine purely 'by feel' how much she wants to lift out, and then withdraw with a pristine, anti-gravity bubble that's as big or as little as she requires. He has to believe the same, confounding principle that allows her to sequester fluids in specific, measured densities is also operating here, albeit on an infinitely larger and definitively _solid_ target.

Katsuki's got no idea how long this is supposed to take – with the wet stuff she's never needed more than a couple seconds, but it's already been a _handful_ of seconds since she made contact and she's still stuck to the ceiling and they are officially _out of time_ —

"Bakugou!" She cries out, and he doesn't think, he just moves –practically fucking teleports to her, and hooks her by the waist as she _finally_ pulls her arms away from the ceiling, limply flings them around his metal collar, and slumps into him, head tucked clumsily under his chin. "Fissure!" Katsuki hears the command through the flash of heat she inadvertently sets off when she breathes the name against his neck, and follows unhesitatingly where she bids, steering them over and up through their improvised entry port and plotting a course for the designated Registry-toppling ass clown some five floors above.

As they go, he can feel Uraraka's fingers isometrically tensing against the back of his neck, and knows she's manually adjusting the pull of gravity to fix the building in place, likely to keep any broken, disconnected chunks from floating off into space.

It takes him another long, dubious moment to connect this understanding to the bigger picture implication that Uraraka can't fix jack shit in place unless her quirk's taken effect and she's got the thing completely under her control.

Which means… _she_ _ **did**_ _it_.

Uraraka performed a feat equal in sheer fucking absurdity to All Might in his heyday, decking a fucking cyclone and instantly dissipating the storm, and she did it so unceremoniously and anticlimactically that he motherfucking _missed it_? What in the _actual fuck_!

Awe and pride permeate the fugue state he's half slipped into, and Katsuki's heart catches in his throat as he lands them back on the twenty-third floor –which is wrecked and burned to _total shit_ — and she goes slack. Swiftly gathering her against him, Katsuki scoops her up and bars an arm under her ass to hold her aloft, bracing a hand at her spine to keep her from sliding out of his grasp and puddling onto the floor.

"The hell've they been feeding you, Cheeks?" He growls into her hair, meaning to convey how utterly fucking _dumbfounded_ he is by what she's done, but fine with the spent 'mouuu' she unhappily exhales over his shoulder when she instead takes it as a jab at her weight –which she only _barely_ has at the moment anyway.

Smirking to himself, Katsuki casts his gaze out over the landscape of melted, mutilated cubicles, searching for the Freak –who's probably still alive, considering the building's still shattering to pieces all around them. There's apparently no longer any danger of any part of the framework _collapsing_ , but the loud-ass shake-and-break continues unabated, and he could definitely fucking stand for _that_ to not be happening anymore.

He locates Fissure on his first pass of the room, illuminated beneath a window –where he'd likely been thrown by the blast—by a shaft of silver moonlight. Fissure's alone on a sloping island of broken glass and crumbling foundation, pinned there from the waist down by thick slab of fallen ceiling.

Even before Katsuki draws up beside the Freak, he can plainly tell the guy's a goner. In fact, by the time he carefully kneels in the wreckage near Fissure's outstretched arms, laid out in front of him with his palms flattened to the floor, Katsuki can see the Freak's previously well-defined features are now all but unrecognizable, burned away to expose layers of seared muscle and bone. It's a gruesome sight, but one which underscores Fissure's fanatical resolve to destroy the Registry at any cost, that he would devote however little of his life is left to symbolically toppling the institution he so detests by literally dragging down its brick and mortar façade.

If nothing else, Katsuki can respect Fissure's strength of will.

Stabilizing Uraraka against him –an easy enough task with her absent most of her natural weight, Katsuki reaches down and flips Fissure's hands over where they're pressed to the ground. Pretty much as Katsuki expects, Fissure offers no resistance, and makes no attempt to turn his hands around again. He just lies there, staring at nothing and wheezing softly as the building-wide convulsions gradually sputter out, and then seconds later he too releases a long, shuddering breath, and quiets.

 _Fuckin' waste_ , Katsuki mentally snarls, frustrated and pissed off by the fucking _senselessness_ of it all.

"Is he…gone?" Comes the small, sad hail from his shoulder.

"We're hittin' the roof; it'll be safer there." Katsuki responds, blatantly sidestepping the question. Feeling suddenly tired, "Let's get outta here." He stands, detonates what remains of the window –because at this point, what does a little extra damage even fucking matter?— and leans his head out the resulting hole to visually gauge how far up they're headed, roughly speaking. Then, knowing he can't count on Uraraka to hang on tight for take-off, Katsuki hoists her up and belts an arm across her back to hold her fast –bringing them unintentionally face to face, and forcing him to revisit his earlier, unscripted, _almost_ -capitulation to an urge he's been vainly holding under water and attempting to drown out for _three fucking years_.

Her hair's a mess and her cheeks are scuffed –probably from their wipe-out earlier— and the dark, sunken grooves under her eyes make her look haggard and burned out and fucking _anemic_ , and what with her already ashen, ghostly pallor (further evidence, no doubt, of the unimaginable, punishing strain she must be under), the moonlight isn't doing her any favors, and in spite of it all she's fucking perfect and he _wants_ : to hold her goddamn hand; to buy her pointless flowers and take her to the fucking movies; to continue shit-canning blowhard villains by her side; to pin her against the wall, or the floor, or the motherfucking ceiling, and finish what he's been not-so-secretly cursing her for having started three years ago when she dropped out of the sky and kissed him and upended his _whole fucking life_.

He wants **her** , categorically.

Naturally, this bombshell drops at _precisely_ the most inconvenient possible time, when the stench of death and singed hair hangs heavy in the air between them, and while Uraraka's got her hands full holding up the vault of the motherfucking sky.

Before anything else, he's got to get Uraraka away from this scorched hell and Deku on the line to help him put together a fucking exit strategy.

Later, he and Uraraka can sort out what a shit-guzzling, time-squandering _fucklord_ he's been, and then maybe pick up where they left off when Eijirou horned the fuck in on Katsuki's attempted post-concussion impropriety.

Because if they've got anything now, it's time –time Uraraka bought for them, with a stunt he'll be giddily rubbing in the face of every fuck-headed Uravity skeptic from here to fucking _eternity_.

* * *

*kotatsu- a low table covered by a futon or huge-ass comforter, and underneath which hides an electric heater of some variety. if you've watched basically *any* modern anime, you've definitely seen one.

**yakuza- i didn't actually 'star' this one in the body of the fic, because i figure _probably_ everyone knows who/what the yakuza are, but juuuuust in case: essentially, the yakuza are the japanese mafia, although there's plenty to distinguish the yakuza from other organized crime syndicates around the world. they're often associated with a particular 'gangster' vernacular which is positively *rife* with ' _korrrrrra_!s' and ' _orrrrrra_!s.' i fucking love it.

other notes:

-just so we're clear: when i say 'tons' in this fic, i'm talking 'metric' tons, since that's the measure they'd be using in japan. 15,000 metric tons=15 million kgs, which is roughly 33 million pounds. uraraka is a BOSS.  
-the bridge collapse vaguely referenced in this chapter is the same one barely mentioned in chapter three of 'this dreadful spectacle.'  
-this chapter is a cross-section of about 15-20 seconds, max.

/-/

[next chapter: nerd frequencies, exit strategies, and the long-promised motivational screaming!]


	8. his surrendered denial

there are a couple of references to events/facts from 'this dreadful spectacle' and 'appendix b: statics and cohesion' made toward the end of this chapter. they're mostly self-explanatory and shouldn't _require_ you to go back and read the other stories, but for the full effect, i'd recommend checking out those splinter pieces first!

ciao~

* * *

Katsuki performs an automatic factory reset and represses the _ever-loving fuck_ out of his untimely revelation, because he's got a job to do and he knows what his priorities are and he's a _goddamn professional_.

"I don't – _hmmm_ —feel so good…" Uraraka says, in a tellingly strained burble. Katsuki braces himself for the epic sick he's sure she's about to serve up, only to have _his_ stomach bottom out instead when she leans in –or, more sort of falls forward, drops her chin onto his neck guard, and proceeds to –there's really no other word for it— _nuzzle_ at his cheek. Apparently, she's now taking whatever the hell liberties she damn well pleases.

And he doesn't even freaking _mind_. Worse still, he thinks he _likes it_.

"Suck it up." He snaps, discomfited, sensing that his days of blithely ignoring her atomic fucking cuteness have come to a summary fucking end. The prospect alone is galling, and hateful, and does effectively shit-all to prevent him from grasping shameless at the tit-for-tat pretext to take some liberties of his own. "I mean that literally." Katsuki clarifies, curling his fingers into the fabric of her jumpsuit where his left hand is pressed over her ribs, and turning his face just so, to nudge her hair out of the way and gain access to the smooth slope of her jaw, the shapely, tapered arch of her nape. "Puke on me and die." He warns, gruff, only dimly concerned that the seriousness of his threat might be undercut somewhat by his retaliatory participation in all the damn snuggling that's happening –and _what in_ _ **fuck**_ _is the world coming to_ , that that's a thought he has _actual cause_ to be thinking?

Dismissively, Uraraka snorts out a weak, ' _ppfff_.'

" _Try me_ , Sweetness. I'll drop your ass like a sack of fuckin' bricks." He insists, subtly breathing her in as he walks them right up to the edge of the hole he's blown into the wall.

Her woozy giggle lets on that she knows he's full of shit.

" _Mmmmmkaaay_ …" She murmurs, lazily patronizing. "Whatever ya' say, boss."

 _Mochi-brained friggin' smartass_ , he mentally bites back, not fighting his amusement.

In truth, it's no skin off his ass if she needs to hurl. It isn't an eventuality he would _welcome_ , necessarily, since if she does start geysering barf, he's the one who'll be wearing it. But for fuck's sake, Uraraka's the sole reason the city isn't currently a ruined, smoking hellscape; as far as he's concerned, she's more than earned herself a one-time, judgment-free pass to spew-a-palooza.

Still, 'judgment-free' isn't the same as 'hassle-free,' and Katsuki is fucking contractually obligated to give her shit, just like anyone the hell else. She isn't magically exempt just because she's (not-so-inexplicably) irresistible all of a fucking sudden.

(…aaand, so much for 'repressing' his surrendered denial.)

"Uraraka," he grates, grudgingly tearing himself free of the inviting fragrance of her skin as he prepares to take a flying leap out of the Registry, "ready?" The way she hunkers down and burrows against him in earnest suggests she's not.

Typically, if he's bothering to ask and she answers in the negative, he'll standby for the go-ahead. But at this particular moment? Katsuki is _beyond_ anxious to get as far the hell away as he can from this grisly, floor-wide testament to the three lives they failed to save, whether or not that means risking the revival of Uraraka's long-dormant, vomit comet drawback.

So, "Tough shit." He snipes, in an undertone of shamed impatience.

Then, delaying again only long enough to secure his MVP cargo, he jumps.

/-/

On the way up, Katsuki gets a first-hand glimpse at the devastating extent of the damage Fissure visited on the Registry. Within, he sees collapsed or gutted internal structures and burst water pipes and the odd electrical hazard, ominously flickering. Externally, riven and craggy hunks of the building sway like reeling giants, tethered in place like enormous, misshapen balloons on invisible strings. The Registry is _fucked_.

He also gains some important perspective on the historic, major league fucking _insanity_ that is Uraraka, keeping this monolithic shitting _colossus_ of a structure afloat, all by herself.

Seriously, fucking _**how**_?

What the shit even _is she_?

/-/

No sooner do they touch down on the roof – miraculously sans vomit—than Katsuki tunes his earpiece to Nerd Frequency, cuts across any forthcoming pleasantries, and starts summarizing the highpoints of their –or more specifically, _Uraraka's_ —predicament.

When he finishes, there's a moment of silence before, "… _ **how**_ _many floors_?" Deku asks, and Katsuki rankles, because what he hears in the nerd's voice is fascination and excitement, not stunned incredulity –the state in which Katsuki now fucking _lives_. Of _course_ Deku isn't surprised Uraraka's suddenly lugging around a few extra thousand goddamn tons. He's fucking _never_ surprised when his friends and allies pull impossible shit out of their asses –only earnestly thrilled and brimming with vicarious pride.

"Focus up, fuckwit. You got a way to get a hold of that Shiketsu brat Small Eyes was up own ass about last week? 'Kukan,'* or some shit?" That puffed-up Meatball Bastard had stopped by the main office several days ago, specifically to preen about Shiketsu's newest 'rising star;' some second year kid with a spatial manipulation quirk, who can carve inter-dimensional portals out of thin fucking air and travel at whim anywhere she goddamn wants –although Katsuki's since learned the kid's quirk comes with a potentially fatal drawback: long trips or rapid, repeated use of her power induces a kind of short-term narcolepsy, and diminishes the amount of control she has over where she pops out. Camie, who broke this news to Katsuki over tea and _daifuku_ ** (which she ordered and 'let' him pay for, took shameless shitting _dozens_ of selfies with, and then pushed aside and _never fucking touched_ ), further explained that, as Shiketu's training programs have started ramping up and really testing the students' limits, Small Eyes' wunderkind has developed the unfortunate habit of opening portals at unintended, terminal heights, immediately conking out, and doing her level fucking best to plummet to her death.

So, the kid's green and her quirk's a work in progress and her power isn't _technically_ teleportation, but it's functionally just as fucking good, and Katsuki can't think of anyone else –on their side and/or in the industry, anyway— who can bring them the pro they need to 'wrap' this shit up anywhere near as fast.

"' _Kukan Shi-san,' I think. And yeah, Shishikura-senpai actually introduced me to her over the weekend! She's a great kid, and her quirk is_ stunning. _The applications are endless_!" Deku announces, enthusiastic. Uraraka, (as ever) reflexively responding to Deku's joy, hums contentedly on Katsuki's shoulder. Katsuki glowers into the middle distance, coming to terms at last with why this has always been so uniquely fucking maddening.

Heading Deku off before he starts runaway blabbering about the kid's quirk like the whack job fanboy he is, "Got her number, then? Or Meatball's?"

" _Not his number specifically, no, but I've got Nagamasa-san's branch office on speed dial, and I'm sure someone there'll be able to help us make whatever arrangements we need. Speaking of: what arrangements_ do _we need to make_?"

Off the top of his head, Katsuki can think of three heroes who might be of use in resolving this situation: there's Shiva, whose 'Diamond Dust' quirk could dissolve the Registry into harmless, shimmering sparkles; and Green Thumb, whose eponymous power could transfigure the entire building into vines and flowers, and possibly bond it back together; and then there's Shrink Wrap, whose size manipulation abilities would enable her to envelop and shrink the Registry down to infinitely more manageable dimensions.

Unfortunately, Shiva lives in some far-off southern prefecture, and Katsuki's pretty sure he remembers hearing news about Green Thumb expatriating recently, so he has to imagine neither of them are in range of the kid's current abilities. Although, even if the kid _could_ get one of them here, who knows how long either of their quirks would take to fully disintegrate or transform a building of this size? Finally, because the Registry's a multi-billion yen government asset, they _have_ to try to preserve what remains of the structure if they have the means to do so, and the effects of Shiva's and Green Thumb's quirks are, regrettably, irreversible –a fact which _should_ have barred them both from consideration as anything other than potential courses for last resort.

Except, by process of elimination, that just leaves Shrink Wrap.

Shrink Wrap, who lives in Tokyo –only one ward away—and whose quirk works fast, which he knows from having seen it in action. She was famously recruited by NASA and JAXA to shrink and retrieve the decommissioned International Space Station so they wouldn't have to crash it into the ocean, and footage of the event was livestreamed to the whole fucking planet. In a matter of seconds, she was holding the ISS in the palm of her hand, reduced to roughly the size of one of the grenades on his belt, and packaged in sheer, shiny wrapping. Later, the _un_ wrapping was also simulcast, and the world watched her set the shrunken craft on the ground, hop back a step, and dramatically raise her arms into the air, cackling like a crackpot as the empty desert plateau before her filled with a deadass _million tons_ of space junk in the blink of a damn eye.

By any criteria, then, Shrink Wrap's the clear choice. And it should be an _easy_ choice. But the point is, _he doesn't fucking want to choose her_ , and racks his brain for _any_ viable alternative, even after he's convinced it's a lost cause.

Generally, Katsuki doesn't like hiring freelancers, since they tend to be high-demand specialists whose services are often only available at extortionate, bank-breaking rates, but he'll hire one if the situation calls for it –including Shrink Wrap, who's bound to be charging a generous fucking premium after that stunt with the ISS. And he's got no beef with the so-called 'Seal n' Fresh Hero' personally, either. How the hell could he, when he's never freaking met her?

The actual source of his aversion to her, pathetically, is the nature of her quirk, which reminds him unavoidably of the time he was motherfucking _atomized_ in the woods, squeezed into a claustrophobic fucking marble, and dragged against his will into the inciting incident that ended All Might's career.

Ultimately, however, his shitty baggage isn't a factor. His sole priority right now is relieving Uraraka of her burden as quickly as possible, to spare her any among a host of potentially debilitating consequences overclocking her quirk might invite.

So, "Get me Shrink Wrap, fucking _yesterday_." He issues this command in a tone edged with unmasked hostility.

A short-lived silence punctuates the rhythm of their exchange, and Katsuki can practically _see_ Deku nodding at Todoroki (who's either directly at the nerd's side or loose one mortal fucking coil), mutely delegating Half-and-Half a task. Todoroki'll be nodding right back, fluently translating Deku's rote motion into explicit instructions, after which the two of them will no doubt make fucking goo-goo eyes at each other as they split off to complete their individual assignments. _Predictable fuckin' saps…_

At length, " _We're on it, Ground Zero_." Deku says. " _We'll put the call in for Shrink Wrap, and I'll head in her direction just in case we can't get permission to borrow Kukan-san_."

Katsuki opens his mouth to snap that 'can't' ain't a goddamn option, but comes up short when a one-two drip splash-lands on his shoulder, followed by the slightest, partial deafness-muffled sniffle.

It's Uraraka, crying.

Urgently changing tack, " _Deku_ ," he snarls, grasping angry for a way to stress that time is of the essence without calling attention either to Uraraka's distress –since it seems like she's trying to be discreet about it—or his own sense of frustrated helplessness, because what fucking right does he have to inflict his spirit dampening, selfish-ass misgivings on the one person standing between this city and _complete annihilation_? Per fucking usual, Deku pickaxes his way into Katsuki's brain and mines the meaning he fails to actually communicate, then skips ahead to the guileless, heartfelt assurance portion of the program.

" _You can count on me, Kacchan_." This declaration evokes a haunting scene from a year past: Uraraka, twice impaled in his stead and passed off into Deku's care while continuing to bleed absolutely outright motherfucking _everywhere_ ; and Deku, making exactly the same vague, uncompromising pledge to do whatever it might take to save her.

Following the script like Deku _hasn't_ just deliberately kicked his heart in the dick, "Fuck _off_ already, damn nerd."

Deku's answering smile is fucking _audible_.

" _Urav—Ochako-san_ ," Deku chimes in again, with an easy, honest affection Katsuki hates, " _If you need anything –really, anything at all, even if it seems trivial, don't hesitate to ask. I'm here if you need me, just a tap away. You know that, right_?" Uraraka, evidently trying to pretend she's fine, quietly struggles to compose herself enough to respond.

After a moment, in a tightly controlled yet candidly sweet voice, "I know. Thank you, Deku-kun."

" _Always_." Deku promises. " _Although_ ," he laughs, " _since Kacchan's there, you'll probably have all the support you can handle, and then some. Still, the offer stands_." Shrewdly forging ahead before Katsuki can demand what in _fuck_ that's supposed to mean, " _In the meantime, hang tight; we'll be there before you know it! You've got this_!"

Katsuki, outraged at Deku's drive-by insolence, "Fucking of course she's got this. What part of 'fuck off already' don't you understand? Stop mother henning and dicking around and go get me my goddamn freelancer!"

Then, before the nerd can get another word in edgewise, Katsuki smacks off his comm and plunges the rooftop into abrupt, spiteful silence. The distant dirge of the evacuation sirens and untold scores of cars honking down below _do_ constitute a kind of unpleasant ambient noise, but for the most part it's all too faint and far away to fully hear, and keeps getting filtered out by the wind, which at this altitude howls loud and endless. Strangely, though, the raging bursts of wind lend the quiet an eerie definition, and seem to enhance it.

That is, until Uraraka finds her voice again, and punctuates the tentative peace with a petulant –if strained—rebuke: " _Mouuu_ , would it kill ya' to be nice, just _once_?"

"Are you fucking _new_?" Katsuki sneers, his much maligned 'rage aura' flaring up and instantly incinerating any goodwill she might've accrued. Enfeebled to an almost comical degree, Uraraka squirms against him briefly, indignant and determined, managing to push herself back to confront him face to face only after tremendous effort. She wobbles drunkenly, and he shoots a hand out, gently catching her at the nape to brace her. The assist does nothing to mitigate her scrunch-browed disapproval.

"Deku-kun was cheerin' me on and being a _good friend_! You had no reason to hang up on him like that!" There're some fresh tears rolling down her cheeks, but most are adhered in an uncomfortable-looking, gel-like film to her eyes –because she herself is currently a micro-gravity environment, meaning any liquid in her intrinsic field will ball up and fail to fall. As soon as he notices, he frowns and reaches up with the heel of his other hand to smear away the accumulated moisture so she doesn't blind herself with her own damn tears.

This explains why she's been trying to hold it in, at least. She and the nerd both are unrepentant, dyed-in-the-wool crybabies, so he _had_ wondered.

"'No reason?' Every second that shithead spent shooting off his idiot mouth was time fucking _wasted_!"

"So _what_! It's _my_ time to waste!" Which, though technically true, is also childish and fucking asinine.

In general, this entire line of reprimand feels somehow…gratuitous. She's constantly pointing out –with odd self-satisfaction—examples of 'how far he and Deku have come since high school,' and she might not always condone the way he interacts with the nerd, but she very rarely cries foul –unless, by her reckoning, he _really_ crosses a line. And he objectively fucking _hasn't_.

So the question is, what is this 'defending Deku's shitty honor' shtick _actually_ about?

"You planning on keepin' this shit up all night, then? Say the word, Round Face, and I'll leave you the hell to it." Real consternation surfaces in her expression, and –interestingly—restores some of her color. "You wanna get him back on the line and gab like a couple o' carefree chatterfucks, I'll even reopen the channel before I go, since you probably couldn't do it yourself with those bum fuckin' arms!" She pouts, offended, as he wipes away another teary bubble forming under her left eye, noticing as he does so that her gaze is clearer, less glassy with unshed tears. " _You_ should know better than anyone that _every second_ counts right now, and Deku needed a boot to the damn head to remind his distracted ass to—"

- _ **wait**_. _God fucking dammit_. That's it, isn't it?

Turns out, _he's_ the shithead. Uraraka's pushing The Deku Button on purpose, to pick a fight, because this is what she needs: not flaccid reassurance or focus-boosting peace and quiet, but a _distraction_ , something to keep the fire lit under her, and take her mind off what has to be unreal, un _imaginable_ pain.

Fighting, he can do. Gladly, since it's what he's best at, and with fucking _aplomb_.

 _Game on, Sweetness_.

* * *

*kukan: interval/space (as in spatial); shi: master; kukan shi: literally, 'master of space' (so fucking metal yessss)

**daifuku – a kind of mochi with a sweets-filled center; mochi isn't necessarily sweet, but daifuku –by my understanding, at least—almost always is. uraraka would be Scandalized to learn that camie let perfectly good mochi go to waste.

other notes:

-shiva and her 'diamond dust' quirk are _absolutely_ a reference to the FF franchise summon.  
-also: no, bakugou being on first name basis with camie was NOT A MISTAKE, mwahaha. i wonder how _that_ happened?  
-fun fact: the international space station is actually slated to be decommissioned in 2024, and is indeed destined (then, or later) for a watery grave in the _incredibly_ bleak-sounding 'Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility'  
-the next chapter will be near completely kacchako. the fighting's over, the building's (more or less) secure, and the only thing bakugou and uraraka have to do right now is /wait/, all by themselves, for several minutes, on a no doubt v v cold rooftop (and let's not forget, bakugou's still soaked from his previous encounter with Water Teen), basically *right after* bakugou's finally admitted to himself that he wants a piece of uraraka's action. I WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN in the two or three minutes they'll have before the cavalry arrives...!

/-/

[next chapter: smooches and stripping.]


	9. riddle-wrapped insinuation

[alternate chapter title: uraraka has a mighty thirst.]

prepare yourselves, y'all: uraraka's accent is heavier than ever, since –as we learned in appendix b, she leans into kansai-ben pretty hard when she's fatigued and/or under duress. i know the accent's not everyone's bag, but i've tried writing uraraka without it and i have a imuch/i harder time 'hearing' her voice without the arbitrary affectation, so...y'know, the accent's here to stay.

* * *

Ochako can't feel her arms. Or, she can _feel_ 'em, but they're numb, insensate in that particular, limbs fallin' asleep kinda way that tells her she's in for two full sleeves of stabby hot pins n' needles when they wake up again. Initially, right after she flipped off the Registry's gravity, her arms'd gone all weak an' tingly, but she could still _move_ them. Y'know, for the most part. Now, not half a minute later, her arms're just kinda loosely flopped over Bakugou's shoulders, useless. Even lifting them might be too big an ask, let alone wrappin' 'em around his neck and hangin' on for dear life when he leaps out the building and rockets for the roof.

Thankfully, Bakugou's grip is tight enough for the both of them, and every bit as… _sturdy_ as the rest of him –which isn't so much news as it is newly impossible to ignore, on account o' the fluster-makin', welded-together press of his body against hers.

Over the years, by necessity, Ochako's gotten pretty good at compartmentalizing her less than strictly professional appreciation of Bakugou's chiseled-from-stone _solidity_. And most days, it's not even really somethin' she has to work at; it's simple force of habit. But right now, while their breakneck ascent's got gale force winds battering down on top of 'em and what feels like _all_ her blood poolin' in the soles of her feet and her stomach whippin' itself into a queasy frenzy the likes o' which she's never known, drinkin' in the lean-muscled, corded _density_ of Bakugou's physique is less an unfortunate lapse and more the willful, happy upshot of a desperate bid to stave off the encroachin' sick.

To her mind, throwin' up so soon after she'd activated her quirk is as good as conceding she's already at her limit, and neither the Registry nor the ward can afford that, so _she_ can't _allow_ it. No matter how steep the cost of stemmin' the tide (so to speak), she's gotta be willing to pay it. She doesn't have much in the way o' currency, though, beyond a half-baked scheme to close her eyes, fix the sum total of her awareness onto Bakugou –the glycerin-sweet, smoke n' copper smell of him, the cool-wet fabric cling of his uniform, the taut, powerful _breadth_ of him—and hope for the best.

It's pretty flimsy, as strategies go, but her resources're limited and it's the best she can do in her condition and so far it _seems to be working_ , so Ochako doesn't waste any effort agonizin' over alternatives. Instead, she focuses on the rigor-stiff bar of his arm across her back; and the fisted, grappler's hold of his fingers, bunching the material of her jumpsuit at the waist, just below her ribs; and the wedge of his knee, braced between her thighs like a crude seat to keep her from slippin' free –and somehow, amazingly, her shallow ploy does the trick.

Before she knows it, they've stopped climbing and entered freefall, and the sheer, gut-droppin' suddenness of the vector change nearly does her in – _would've_ done her in, if not for the equally sudden landing, which Bakugou executes with conspicuous precision and attempted gentleness, prob'ly in an attempt to jar her as little as possible. But he still hits the roof at speed, and _hard_ , enough that he's forced into a low, counterbalancing squat, and _she's_ sent involuntarily skiddin' the length of his thigh, from knee to pelvis and immediately back again as he rebounds to a standing position like a coiled spring.

In a moment of _intense_ , hypersensitized shock, Ochako's world contracts to the heady, chafing _friction_ of Bakugou's thigh slidin' against her, and she forgets: her escalating fear that she won't be able to hold out 'til help arrives, her wallopin' nausea, her _name_ —as she comes apart with a strangled cry and sparkler bursts of color phosphorescin' behind her closed eyes.

She's **mortified**.

But Bakugou makes no indication he's aware any of this's goin' down. Maybe he can't hear her clearly? Or, even if he _can_ , maybe context leads him to assume the noise is more the product of pain than (inadvertent!) pleasure? Ochako clings fiercely to the hope that she's just gotten off scot-free,* but can't bring herself to really believe it 'til Bakugou stoops to hike her legs up –one at a time, leisurely as ya' please—and wrap 'em 'round his waist, _one hundred percent_ unfazed. And he continueswreakin' oblivious havoc, hands loosely cradlin' the underside of her thighs while he snaps somethin' into the open air she misses on account of _his hands're_ _cradlin' the underside of her thighs,_ and he has _got to be stopped_ before she erupts into literal flames and _dies_.

Good n' ready to throw herself down the ol' shame-spiral staircase, Ochako perks up slightly when, seemin'ly outta the blue, a voice that never fails to put her at ease sounds in her earpiece: _"Copy, Deku here-!"_

"Shut it, shitwad. We've got a situation," Bakugou interjects, instantly shutting him down. Ochako frowns, upset on Deku's behalf but unable to intervene. She _wants to_ , but when the simple act of opening her eyes leaves her light-headed and sets her entire reality tipsy twirlin', she decides it's too big a risk to try to talk –or _move_ — unless it's absolutely necessary. Better not to test a fragile ecosystem.

She concentrates on her breathing instead, on maintainin' a slow n' steady rhythm in and out, in and out, _iiiin and oooout_. It barely helps, and it's difficult to concentrate with the world on a whirly pinwheel, but at least she finally manages to distract herself from her original distraction: Bakugou. Specifically, Bakugou's abs and arms and — _ **nope**_ , _that's_ not a helpful avenue of thought!

Anxious for a detour, Ochako dips back in on the conversation between Deku and Bakugou, but finds followin' more'n the gist of the thing too tall an order. She knows they're hashin' out a plan for safely offloading the Registry, and she's pretty sure they mention a student, somethin' about numbers, an' maybe that freelancer who went to space a while back…? Honestly, it's all kinda runnin' together, curdling into so much unintelligible background noise while her body's busy cultivating an immense, slow-building _ache_.

It's _already_ too much to bear, and the helpless anticipation, the _knowing_ that it can only get worse from here, wrings out the tears she's been tryin' so hard to check.

Mercifully, the spins do subside, which relieves her nausea somewhat –but that likely only happens as a consequence of _the_ _pain_ , settin' fire to her senses and rekindling every last deeply-held doubt she's ever had. How did she ever think she was gonna pull this off? What twisted arrogance made her so certain she _could_? This endeavor was doomed from the start. She isn't cut out for this business, she never was, and she can't put off facin' the fact any longer—!

 _"Urav—Ochako-san,"_ Deku addresses her, _"if you need anything –really, anything at all, even if it seems trivial, don't hesitate to ask. I'm here if you need me, just a tap away. You know that, right?"_ Deku's voice is sunlight, breakin' through sky-darkening clouds; his words sweet, precious air, breathin' life into her and pullin' her back from the brink.

Composin' herself as much as she's able, "I know. Thank you, Deku-kun."

 _"Always,"_ Deku pledges, with a sincerity she can't _not_ immediately believe. _"Although, since Kacchan's there, you'll probably have all the support you can handle, and then some. Still, the offer stands."_ The playful brilliance of his laughter uplifts her, and his follow-up reassurance suffuses her with a soft, summer warmth: _"In the meantime, hang tight; we'll be there before you know it! You've got this!"_ Deku's ecstatic pride and unflinching certainty rings out like a bell, and echoes back within her a hundredfold. It surprises her, actually, how profoundly his conviction affects her, how easily it restores her confidence.

For one perfect second, though the pain never truly lets up, Ochako feels as though she could take on the whole world.

Until, "Fucking of course she's got this. What part of 'fuck off already' don't you understand? Stop mother henning and dicking around and go get me my goddamn freelancer!"

/-/

Deku and Bakugou exist as singular entities in one another's lives. Even before they had their mysterious reconciliation back in their first year at U.A., they were indispensable to one another; each one constituting the invisible force drivin' the other to be faster n' stronger n' _better_ –as heroes, and as people. And that's to say nothin' of _after_ they reconciled, when their already super weird an' impenetrably complicated relationship took a remarkable turn for the (almost) functional, and saw 'em becomin' unexpected confidantes, and –on occasion—somethin' awful near friendly.

Now, years later, Deku and Bakugou's dynamic still defies conventional classification, but one thing's obvious to anyone who actually knows either of 'em outside their well-publicized 'eternal rivalry,' and indisputable to those who know 'em best: they love each other.

They're not BFFs, and Ochako's willin' to wager they never will be, 'cause whatever the heck they are is way too knotty and intense for that. Regardless, the well runs deep between the two, even if on the surface it doesn't look like very much has changed, especially when it comes to the way Bakugou talks to Deku. But the truth is, while Deku definitely gets the worst of it, Bakugou raisin' hell and swearin' himself blue is just… _Bakugou_ , and Deku's gotta know that better'n anyone. No way he takes it to heart.

She _knows_ these things, and a harrowingly present part of her likewise knows she _does_ ** _not_** _have time to dawdle_ , and yet, when Bakugou rakes Deku over the coals for 'dicking around' and then abruptly terminates the call, Ochako feels legitimately and personally _attacked_. Bakugou has stripped away her sunlight, and pulled the very air from her lungs. He has _stolen_ _from her_ in her _hour of need_!

Resentfully, " _Mouuu_ , would it kill ya' to be nice, just _once_?"

Not missin' a beat, "Are you fucking _new_?" There's a nastiness in the comeback that settles her lickety-split on lettin' the fury drive.

In one of the more painfully clumsy –and also just plain painful—maneuvers of her short career, Ochako has to give everything she's got to push herself back far enough to look him in the face without goin' cross-eyed. Unfortunately, the exertion takes more out of her than she expects, and she's fully careening by the time she realizes she's got nothin' left to _hold herself up_.

But then there's Bakugou, swiftly catchin' her by the back of the neck, the careful steadiness of his grip at odds with the open hostility of his expression. The contradiction frustrates her.

"Deku-kun was cheerin' me on and being a _good friend_! You had no reason to hang up on him like that!"

 _Everything hurts_. With every passing second, the weight gets heavier an' the agony redoubles and the righteous indignation builds, 'cause he's so _rude_ and his eyelashes're so naturally _thick_ and _pretty_ and he has _no right_ to wipe her tears away so sweetly while simultaneously tearin' her head off for something she already freaking knows,

"'No reason?' Every second that shithead spent shooting off his idiot mouth was time fucking _wasted_!"

"So _what_! It's _my_ time to waste!" Ochako knows it's childish as the words are coming out of her mouth, but she doesn't _care_ , can't afford to _think_ about caring; she's gotta stay in the moment, and keep herself conscious and _in the game_. And to do that, her instincts insist she has to _chase the anger_.

Lucky for her, Bakugou's an old hand at rilin' people up.

"You planning on keepin' this shit up all night, then? Say the word, Round Face, and I'll leave you the hell to it. You wanna get him back on the line and gab like a couple o' carefree chatterfucks, I'll even reopen the channel before I go, since you probably couldn't do it yourself with those bum fuckin' arms! _You_ should know better than anyone that _every second_ counts right now, and Deku needed a boot to the damn head to get his distracted ass to—!" Ochako seizes the opportunity to cut in the instant Bakugou stumbles to a surprise halt, not curious in the least to suss out what's tripped him up.

"I _needed_ him!" She doesn't mean to blurt it out like that, but it momentarily stuns Bakugou into (continued) silence, so she rolls with it. "It _already_ _feels_ like I've been holdin' this thing up all night! I can't feel my arms, and my feet're startin' to go numb, and it feels like I'm…like I'm bein' _crushed_ , and I don't wanna _do this anymore_ , I just wanna drop it so the pain'll _stop_ –but for just a minute –a _second_ —Deku-kun made me forget all that an' helped me believe I can actually _do this_ , and you _took that away from me_! I _needed him_!"

Bakugou fixes her a cold look that goes straight to her bones.

"Bullshit." Ochako blinks at him, dumbstruck.

"Ex _cuse me_?"

Bakugou leans aggressively into her space, eyes narrowed an' gleamin' with icy rage.

"I said," he begins, so close she can feel his breath against her face, "that's _bullshit_. And you know it." Her stomach's twistin' into knots and it's got a big fat lotta nothin' to do with her quirk.

"I don't—"

"You know good and goddamn well what you're capable of without Deku feeding you filler-ass platitudes and stating the blatantly fucking obvious. The only thing you 'need' from that shithole nerd is for him to do his job with some proper fuckin' urgency. The rest is up to you," he's lookin' directly at her, _into_ her, "and me." As he says it, the fingers at the back of her neck give a firm but gentle knead, and her body betrays her by full-on _shiverin_ ' at the sensation. It shifts the tenor of the whole exchange, for keeps.

Puttin' her all into pretending she _isn't_ approaching spontaneous combustion levels o' overheated: "It's not 'obvious' to me that I can keep this up much longer! And it's not okay for you to decide what I do and don't need!" She manages, somehow, through the raw astonishment of Bakugou pickin' up his feet and walkin' her backward, deliberate-like, 'til her shoulderblades hit somethin' solid, metallic, and frightful cold.

"It is when your judgment goes to shit!" Resentment and overstimulation have her heart hammerin' like mad, almost in time with the muffled _whomp-whomp-whomp_ of what she's guessing is an industrial fan at her back. "For _fuck's sake_ , you succeeding isn't contingent on Deku's ass-poor excuse for a pep talk –you're _floating a fuckmothering skyscraper_! You turned the _Registry_ into a giant fuckoff inflatable! How the hell is _that_ not validation enough?"

Why can't he understand her morale's on the line here, and that Deku's 'filler platitudes' might be just what the doctor ordered? It's almost like he's _intentionally_ missing the point!

"You're not _listening_ —!"

"Neither the fuck are you!" Bakugou's fingers fall away from her neck, trailin' fire as her head tips back against the fan for support. "What you _think_ you need is objectively fucking _wrong_ , and I could _give a shit_ about Deku's irrelevant dumbfuck feelings!" It's mean, borderin' on cruel –gaslightin' her about her own feelings? Criticizing her judgment, knowin' she's under significant duress? It seems…excessive, like Bakugou's more interested in getting a rise out of her than winnin' the argument. Like he knows she's spoilin' for a fight, and he's given himself leave to see how far he can push her.

This insight makes the whole thing feel oddly disingenuous; a notion strengthened by his apparent inability to stop _handling_ her. Even as Bakugou's maligning poor Deku for _having feelings_ , he's vanishing what little space's left between 'em, sandwiching her between himself and the fan's metal casing, his features sharp with anger and his eyes unmistakably _on her_ _mouth_.

Ochako's knees buckle, and – _is she breathing too hard?_ —Bakugou _reacts_ , scoopin' her up by the legs and arranging her around his waist for a second time in as many minutes –even though she's mostly weightless and isn't really in danger of slipping. The dig of his fingers into her thighs is similarly without discernible purpose; it's certainly not necessary to hold her fast or keep her from floatin' off anywhere.

"Only one thing that matters right now, Uraraka," he says, at a quieter, slightly sinister pitch, "and it's got fuck-all to do with _Deku_." Bakugou pairs this riddle-wrapped insinuation with a Smug Bastard smirk, and the combo is _devastating_.

Ochako's frustration hits critical mass. Bakugou's bein' an obnoxious puffed-up jerkface, but he's also considerately wipin' away her tears and proppin' her up and givin' her guff for daring to doubt her victory's anything other'n assured; and he's got a decisive intensity to his gaze that sets a charge hummin' through her; and he's _beautiful_ ; and she's _so sick_ of pretending she doesn't want his big dumb angry mouth on her mouth—

"You're such an _absolute_ _prick_!" She explodes. His red eyes flash and he grins giddy murder, all teeth and madness and unapologetic excitement at the prospect of takin' this fight to the next level.

Bakugou opens his mouth, no doubt to fire off the next volley, only to have the initiative immediately stolen from him when Ochako leans forward and presses her lips to his.

* * *

*'gotten off scot-free' – this only got the Footnote Asterisk because it is the literal worst pun of all time.

other notes:

-i hope by now it surprises no one that things did /not/ go to plan in the writing of this chapter, or that certain promised Steam!time Activities had to be pushed back to the next chapter. if this frustrates you, WELCOME TO MY HELL. (if it helps, i know with absolute certainty that the next chapter will be the last, and that it will be all steam!time, all the time.)

-bakugou smells partially of copper because of the various injuries he's sustained. what uraraka's so fondly whiffin' up is bakugou, bleeding. XD

-there're definitely OT3 vibes i picked up and ran with a little. ms_chunks was not lying when she said that shit just happens.

-ART FOR THIS CHAPTER IS IN PROGRESS.

/-/

[next chapter: smooches and stripping. (for real this time.)]


	10. an unambiguous incitement

this is the first chapter that draws reeeeeally heavily on the events of 'this moronic episode' and 'this dreadful spectacle,' so i'd definitely go check those out first if you haven't already, for MAXIMUM IMPACT.

also: this chapter is 98.9% making out.

enjoy~!

* * *

Katsuki sees red when Uraraka claims she 'needs' Deku, and not just because it touches a giant, throbbing nerve (although it absolutely fucking does, that she thinks she needs _anyone_ other than the person who's actually _here_ , _literally_ supporting her), but also because she's _already doing the damn thing_ , and doesn't need King Fucking Shit Idiot to pat her on the head and tell her she's doing a good job for her to find the strength to continue.

Disabusing dipshits of their chump-ass assumptions about Uraraka's 'comparatively limited' abilities and overall worthiness as a hero already commands an annoying and truly baffling amount of his time and attention; he shouldn't have to convince _her_ , too, least of all while she's _juggernauting a fucking building_!

"You know good and goddamn well what you're capable of without Deku feeding you filler-ass platitudes and stating the blatantly fucking obvious. The only thing you 'need' from that shithole nerd is for him to do his job with some proper fuckin' urgency. The rest is up to you," he rumbles, liquid adrenaline pumping through his veins as he adds, "and me."

Katsuki flexes his fingers at her nape, indulging a wayward impulse without forethought or clear purpose. Subsequently, Uraraka shivers. He's too caught up beating back inappropriate follow-up impulses to deduce the otherwise obvious cause behind this effect, however, and mistakenly chalks her shudder up to the cold –which for him actually comes as a huge relief. Lashed by icy, high-altitude winds and still soaked from Mizu's initial attack, Katsuki's been freezing his balls off since they landed, but he's been reluctant to do anything about it with Uraraka seeming so sensitive to the slightest movement. Now that she's signaled she's cold, too, he can finally justify taking action to warm them both up.

Galvanized, Katsuki advances, improvising as usual, relying on his instincts to guide him. Somehow, this culminates in him pinning her against the nearest vertical surface (the casing of one of the Registry's legion of industrial fan units, he'll realize later), trying to remember how swallowing works.

"It's not 'obvious' to me that I can keep this up much longer! And it's not okay for you to decide what I do and don't need!" She's spitting mad, genuinely offended, and she's fucking _glowing_ , restored to a healthy hue either from exertion or her own palpable fury. Either way, he's fucking mesmerized.

Katsuki doesn't have to manufacture his exasperation, though, starry-eyes be damned, "It is when your judgment goes to shit!" On the face of it, trying to argue she 'needs' Deku to talk her through this and in _the next breath_ stressing that she needs emergency goddamn relief is self-contradictory horseshit. How the fuck did she imagine Deku was even going to get a hold of her emergency relief team if he refused to _hang the hell up_? Furthermore, "For _fuck's_ sake, you succeeding isn't contingent on Deku's ass-poor excuse for a pep talk –you're _floating a fuckmothering skyscraper_! You turned the _Registry_ into a giant fuckoff inflatable! How the hell is _that_ not validation enough?" Fucking **infuriating** –and all the more so for how deeply the sentiment is rooted in the raw need to _touch her_ , at this, the literal worst possible moment, when he should just be happy she's still conscious and lucid, not skeeving on her like a fucking degenerate—

"You're not _listening_ -!" Uraraka charges, and she isn't wrong, but that doesn't prevent him from throwing the accusation immediately back in her face,

"Neither the fuck are you!" Given the right provocation, Uraraka can be quick to anger, but bringing her to her current level of pink-eared rage has historically taken real effort, even for him. Right now, though, every swing he takes –no matter how lacking in finesse—fucking _lands_. That's probably more to do with it being easier to concentrate her wrath than focus on the ludicrous agony she must be enduring, but Katsuki's sweet on the idea that his gloves-off, penetrating cruelty also holds a fractional claim to her heightened susceptibility. "What you _think_ you need is objectively fucking _wrong_ , and I could _give a shit_ about Deku's irrelevant dumbfuck feelings!"

Distantly, through a haze of intense frustration, bitter acrimony, and odd arousal, it occurs to him he must've come over here intending (on some level) to set her down and get to solving their mutual hypothermia problem. Yet here he continues to stand, in the liminal space where Uraraka's personal bubble once existed, openly _staring at her mouth_.

There's a hard pause, when she realizes.

Then, Uraraka's knees give way, and he _grabs_ for her –never-fucking-mind that her gravity's switched off—because his reflex response when Uraraka falls will always be to _fucking catch her_.

The atmosphere changes, thickens, as he pulls her legs around him and grips her tight.

He wants to kiss her.

He _won't_ , because he's not a goddamn animal and is therefore capable of exercising basic fucking restraint; and because he's operating purely on concussion logic at the moment and doesn't fully trust on his own judgment; and above all else, because none of this is _about_ what he wants.

This is about Uraraka, who's probably in the worst pain of her life but toughing it out like a fucking champ to save a city packed with ungrateful trolls and asshole skeptics who are guaranteed to downplay her achievement here, or try to credit it to him somehow, or deny the structure was ever in danger of collapse and raise the question of whether or not she was actually holding the building up at all.

This is about supporting her in whatever way he can, keeping her awake, alert, and actively engaged. No way in hell he takes that to mean he's entitled to make a move –though he's pretty sure it obliges him to reciprocate, in the event _she_ comes on to _him_ , instead.

To that end, an invitation, enclosed in an unambiguous incitement: "Only one thing matters right now, Uraraka, and it's got fuck-all to do with _Deku_." It's the opening gambit in what he expects will be a fraught contest of incremental escalation and foregone conclusions –but Uraraka's got her own agenda.

Ferociously, "You're such an _absolute prick_!"

Katsuki swells with delighted pride and amazement. He's heard her swear plenty over the years (and she's actually pretty impressive once she gets going), so _getting_ Uraraka to cuss isn't necessarily an accomplishment, but getting her to call him a 'prick' –and _mean it_ —definitely fucking is.

A flashbang comeback is well the fuck on its way out of his mouth –until suddenly it isn't anymore; until suddenly Uraraka's suctioned to his fucking face and comebacks are no longer an option because he can't very well speak while _his brain is fucking melting_.

/-/

Katsuki barely registers she's kissing him before he feels her start to pull away, and the powerful déjà vu this triggers briefly fractures his sense of what's real. They've been here before: with her, kissing him out of the blue and immediately retreating; and him, pressing the advantage and urgently gathering her back to him because turnabout is _fair fucking play_.

Except, three years have passed and it's her in tremendous pain instead of him and she's more on the spectrum of flavors including bile than candy ('Sweetness' she is currently fucking _not_ ), and this time, when he refuses to let her go without giving at least as good as he's gotten, Uraraka doesn't balk. She _commits_ , surprising him by straining to push herself closer even as he presses her flush against the fan, and angling her mouth to deepen the kiss, boldly demanding. Katsuki yields, no coaxing necessary, feeling pretty fucking confident at this point that he hasn't misconstrued another crafty attempt to mama bird him emergency medication; and she yields in turn, becoming pliable under the roaming ministrations of his hands, and releasing a shuddering sigh that condenses between them into an icy vapor.

And then they're well and truly making out, at the summit of this shattered-to-fuck husk of a tower, and it's…surreal, more than anything. They're as close as they possibly could be without removing any clothing –although, pin in that—and tongues are now very much in play, and _unbelievably_ , when his hands find the generous curve of her ass, she rolls her hips against him like she's riding a wave and cinches her legs tight around his waist, and it's the hottest slice of _what the fuck_ he's ever been served and it feels fucking amazing but it's also the reason he's having an _existential fucking crisis_ –because the elaborate scaffolding of denial and suppression he built to keep her at arm's length is all falling away, leaving him exposed, cold with regret and self-loathing. _Why_ had he been so bound and damn determined to put this shit off? They were always going to end up here, and he was an obstinate fuckhead for thinking he could will it otherwise.

"Bakugou," Uraraka breathes, a hushed bid for his attention that carves through his compunctions like a knife –and drives her inexplicably backward, away from him. Operating under the fevered assumption this is a maneuver, a coy withdrawal meant to lure, Katsuki lets himself be led, following her until the back of her head bumps against the fan behind her. The pound of his heart is deafening as he closes in, eager to resume hostilities, but a centimeter, a millimeter, the width of a fucking whisper away, Uraraka stays his advance. "Wait," she commands, uncharacteristically austere. Katsuki obeys, slamming to a halt with all the whiplash suddenness of a bird smacking into an unseen window pane. "Don't be mean to Deku."

Unknown to Uraraka, in this moment, under these specific conditions, he's primed to agree to just about motherfucking _anything_ she might ask of him, without a second thought. But this pathological antagonism business he's got going on with Deku is written into his goddamn genetic code; any potential brats he might have will pass it on to potential brats of their own, and thus it will be borne on through the generations into eternity. Unless she means to fundamentally alter his DNA by way of overwriting every last one of his billion-sundry 'be mean to Deku' protocols, the stipulation's a non-starter.

Hence, "Bite me," he growls.

Incredibly, Uraraka wastes no time doing exactly that, shearing through the negative space separating them like the intangible fucking air it is to take his lower lip between her teeth.

Which, holy shit, _**what**_.

Then she rocks against him, _again_ – _holy_ _ **shit**_ — and _he is_ _not fucking ready for it_ , and his knees snap so taut they go out from under him, and they go sliding down the casing together in a fumbling heap, his metal knee pads striking concrete with a heavy, piercing ' _clang!_ ' that makes the slow, sharp throb of his head and left ear immeasurably worse.

Uraraka's back on the offensive before he even has a chance to settle into a comfortable kneeling position, leaning over him –she's slipped upward and askew somewhat in the spill—to claim another kiss with none of the exploratory tentativeness of the first. _This_ kiss is decidedly fucking angry, and _rough_ , like she's determined to make him submit. (That isn't going to happen, obviously, but Katsuki's feeling generous enough to at least indulge the attempt.) She's got his head tipped so far back it's practically perpendicular to the rest of his body, and she's _everywhere_ , brazenly leveraging her (temporary) height advantage and sweeping low for an open-mouthed kiss; breaking away to tease and prompt chase; veering left to press her lips heatedly to his jawline; finishing with her teeth, tugging at the lobe of his ear _just_ enough to hurt.

A guttural sound scrapes out of him, abrasive and unexpected, and provokes a direct counterattack. The hand he's got skimming up the length of her spine leaps the final distance to tangle in her hair, possessively tight, and drags her head back to bare the line of her throat to him. And then he bites down, _hard_ , where the slope of her jaw meets the tender flesh of her neck. Her skin tastes like sweat and ash, and the protruding pink collar of her uniform is jutting awkwardly into his cheekbone, and for a hot minute he's convinced it's too much, too far, that he's overstepped some crucial boundary and _hurt_ her, but it's all fucking worth it when she makes this… _liquid_ noise around the shape of his name, and sinks herself – _firmly_ —into his lap.

The next thing he knows, she's kissing him again and they're tumbling sideways and there's no adequate goddamn language to express how phenomenally fucking _good_ it feels to lay her flat and press her into the concrete and trace his tongue over the shell of her ear while she writhes beneath him, and _shit_ but this is spinning out of control, _fast_ , and he's got zero fucking wherewithal to pump the brakes –until Uraraka's entire body tenses, and a poorly-stifled sob escapes her as her arms slide off his shoulders and flop boneless to the ground on either side of her.

Katsuki freezes, jerks back, beginning to push up, off of her, already berating himself for getting so caught up that he stopped accounting for the strain of the _building she's carrying_ —

"Don't stop," she pleads, breathless, " _please_."

Katsuki considers her carefully, ignoring the powerful effect Uraraka _begging him to kiss her_ has on his ego and focusing instead on the size of her pupils, her level of alertness, the color of her skin, and the specific speed and rhythm of her heart beating against his chest. He swallows past the ugly thickness in his throat, the insistent, sick terror that she's sustaining real, lasting damage, and gently lowers himself onto his elbows on top of her, keeping most of his weight concentrated in his forearms so as not to inhibit her breathing.

He dusts a kiss across her temple, her forehead, the tip of her nose, a reassurance meant as much for her as for himself. She watches him, inscrutable.

Narrowing his eyes, " _What_ ," he scowls, instantly on the defensive.

"Will…could you…?" Uraraka trails off, leaving the question open.

"Out with it already, or no, I fucking couldn't."

"T-take off your mask," she finishes with shaky confidence. Smirking, ego now reaching cosmic proportions, he lifts one hand to fulfill her request, feeling the kohl around his eyes smear as he does so.

Uraraka blinks up at him, brow knitting as her mouth folds into a familiar pout.

"You're so…" she begins, and his smirk widens into a grin in anticipation of the coming insult, " _pretty_." Katsuki's neck and face feel suddenly much like his hands do in that split-second before combustion happens, but he doesn't get the opportunity to be embarrassed or mortally outraged, because she follows this sledgehammer-to-the-fucking-skull of a compliment up with a wincing gasp, clearly in anguish.

He shimmies his arms closer to her body, cups his hands over her mochi-round cheeks, and leans his forehead against hers.

"Steady, Angel Face," he tells her.

Uraraka shakes her head, and with tears in her eyes: "It's too much…please, it's _too much_."

/-/

Six years ago, Present Mic, together with an entire stadium full of blind fuckmunch chauvinists, booed him for fighting her seriously. Subsequently, she tried to murder him _with_ the stadium –on the damn _sly_. A little over two years ago, the team of pros coordinating rescue efforts after the Sumida Bridge collapse tried to sideline her, certain they knew her limits and wanting to use her as sparingly as possible in order to avoid maxing her out and 'rendering her useless.' She spent the next several hours lifting not just people, but entire fleets of vehicles, even fallen sections of the bridge, out of the river below, saving more lives that day by herself than the rest of the assembled first responders, combined.

And last year…last year, he watched from her bedside as she lay dying, and he resigned himself to the certainty that she _would_. He committed himself to the bleak inevitability of a future without her, and to nightmarish visions of the bloody vengeance he'd be compelled to exact on her behalf. Yet here she still is, alive and well (relatively speaking).

It's bullshit that anyone –himself included— _dares_ to doubt her in the first place, but the fact remains: Uraraka thrives, and has _always_ thrived when people underestimate her. Proving extras wrong about counting her out is her goddamn raison d'etre.

It's why he's respected her from the get-go. It's what made him reorder his whole frigging existence to make space for her to fit. It's why he's nutballs fucking crazy about her, why he maybe always has been, and it's why he trusts her to persevere now, even if she refuses to trust as much herself.

It's also why, when Uraraka insists this is 'too much,' implicitly admitting defeat, he dips his mouth to her ear and challenges, "Drop it, then."

That does it: she stiffens, and in a deeply wounded voice, " _W-what_?" He pulls back, wipes through the new tears with his thumbs, purposefully holds her gaze.

"If it's 'too much,' then _drop it_. You said yourself you wanted to." For the longest time, Uraraka's expression reflects shock and betrayal in equal measure.

 _Fight me if you gotta_ , _dammit_ , Katsuki wills, _just keep fucking fighting_.

Gradually, her face hardens with spiteful resolve, and it gives him the goddamn palpitations to behold.

"I…can do this," she asserts through clenched teeth.

"I'll help you out," he continues, heedless of her weak sauce conviction, "I'll press your fingers together, and you can drop the Registry before this shit fucking kills you. Problem solved." With great effort and much grimacing, she manages to lift her head a few precious centimeters off the ground, and that button nose of hers scrunches with adorable indignation as she draws up so close her lips ghost over his.

Uraraka repeats, "I can _do this_." Katsuki's face splits wide into a haughty smile, and he nudges forward for another brief, searing kiss.

"Yeah, no shit," he replies, also repeating himself, albeit from earlier in the evening. "Really shouldn't have taken you all damn night to realize, but way to finally catch the fuck up." She huffs, disapproving. "Idiot," he adds, fondly.

She looks like she might be about to clap back, but she spasms before she can, biting her lip to hold in a cry and screwing her eyes shut tight, and all Katsuki can think about is what in _fuck_ could possibly be keeping Deku, and how badly he wants to shovel that green shit's face into the dirt for lolly-gagging.

"Oi, Uraraka," he says, "look at me." Her only response is to whimper pitifully. He taps lightly at her cheeks, and slides his knees up under him so he's less lying on top of her and more loosely straddling her. Anything he can think of to ease the load, so to speak. "Uraraka," he tries again, and desperation sets in when she starts actively, uncontrollably crying.

" _Please_ …" She wails, and Katsuki doesn't know what specifically she's asking for –for relief, for the pain to end, for him to _do something_ — but ultimately, he's powerless here. There's little he _can_ do, except _be here_ , suffering alongside her, refusing to let her give up on herself.

Although, while he's being insufferably fucking schmaltzy anyway, why not try making an ass of himself, and seeing what that wins him?

"Ochako," he grates, his voice hoarse and unrecognizable and his heart thudding so fast and so hard he thinks he may actually be having a cardiac fucking episode, "I lo—"

The sky cracks open for the _second time tonight_ , cutting across whatever horrifying sentiment he may or may not have been about to share. Katsuki rolls to his knees beside Uraraka, both arms extended in readiness. Unfortunately, thanks to all that _gratuitous fucking head trauma_ , the swiftness of the maneuver unbalances him, and he spends a dizzying several seconds struggling not to tip right the hell over again.

That's probably why it takes him so long to resolve what he's seeing –which is the air, shattering like glass overhead, ten, maybe fifteen meters up, and –two, three, _four_ —individuals free-falling out of an invisible chasm.

"The fuck—?"

* * *

wanna know something super stupid? the thing i'm most worried about in this chapter is whether or not 'weak sauce' should be one word or two.

other notes:  
-you may have noticed this ends in a REALLY SHITTY PLACE. like, probably the worst, most shitty place it possibly could have...? and that, dear reader, is because there's...*deep sigh* going to be an eleventh chapter. it won't be like, a *full* chapter, more a short, one-scene omake, 500-ish words MAX, but it will resolve the final plot threads i've left hanging here, and round things out a bit more so it doesn't feel quite so abrupt and leaves us in a better place for the Epilogue Porn i'm planning (see my tumblr for a sneak peek of said prons). ANYWHO. omake chapter should be out sooner rather than later due to its projected length and the fact that i've already got some of it written.  
-also: due to my oft-mentioned lack of self-control, i have become inadvertently obsessed with another kacchako fic idea of the Bodyguard AU variety, and will begin working to bring that insane vision to life in short order, as well. stay tuned for shenanigans.  
-and: i'm...doing the twitters now? ([ATSIGN]IBafflegab)  
-bye for now I LOVE YOU ALL THANK YOU SO MUCH AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

/-/

[last chapter: jirou wins the pool.]


	11. for fucking keeps

this is it, folks!

enjoy~!

* * *

A glacier-massive eruption of ice cascades out of the upper atmosphere, fashioning itself into a glistening spiral chute to catch the figures as they plummet and luging them to safety on the roof below.

When they land, Deku and Todoroki stand before him, the former setting a shimmery-skinned, platinum-haired woman he identifies instantly as Shrink Wrap on her feet; the latter carting around an unconscious, blue-bobbed teenager in Froppy pajamas. He surmises the kid must be the portal quirk-user he ordered, and makes a mental note to remit an official commendation on her behalf even as his chest wrenches something fucking awful at the unbidden memory of the kid he couldn't save.

Bottling that shit up for later (or ideally, fucking _never_ ), Katsuki redirects, and finds himself torn between two wildly conflicting impulses: on the one hand, he'd really love to rip into Deku for taking his sweet-ass goddamn time getting here. On the other, Uraraka is _out of time_ , and counting on him to free her up to release her quirk, fucking _stat_.

He settles for shooting Deku a scowl steeped in poison, and bows over Uraraka, sweeping sweat-drenched whorls of hair out of her face, and the fat gobs of accumulated tears from her still-closed eyes.

"Cavalry's here," he reports, "time to quit this hellhole." He slips a hand under the base of her skull, bands an arm gingerly across her back. "Ready?" The question's rhetorical, meant more to signal she should brace herself than to request permission to pick her up –he's going to whether she's ready or not, and she's _visibly fucking not_. In fact, as he lifts her –gently, and oh-so-fucking careful—she chokes on a scream, heaves like she's about to spew, appears to swallow back whatever was about to come up, and then spends several seconds moaning in weary agony. "Steady," he reiterates.

Uraraka doesn't respond. She's completely limp now, utterly fucking helpless, and he _hates_ it.

Katsuki scoops his arm under her knees and tucks her face against his chest, unbothered by the prospect that she could blow at any minute, and looks to Deku to give the go-ahead to Shrink Wrap –only to come up short at the expression Deku's wearing.

Deku's already nodding at the freelancer, who cackles insanely as she cups her hands before her like she's begging for alms and blows a gauzy bubble into the makeshift cradle of her palms.

Meanwhile, Deku's gaze is target fucking locked on Katsuki and the curled, whimpering form in his arms. Katsuki watches tears well in Deku's eyes, solemn concern for Uraraka's well-being interbreeding with some obnoxious species of wibbling fucking _jubilation_. As his lip curls and his hackles rise, the nerd's mouth pulls into a watery smile that stretches from one ear to clear across the shitting city.

Because of _course_ this freakishly perceptive asshole immediately fucking knows.

So much for keeping this on the down low until they've had a chance to…pound out the details of their new arrangement in private. Although, Uraraka and Deku being what they are to one another (read: co-founders of the tell-each-other-fucking-everything club), there's no way this shit could've stayed contained long, anyway.

He tuts in aggravation and pockets his murderous intent for present, casting his glower elsewhere and lighting onto Mr. Threw-the-Damn-Match,* tensing when Todoroki's cocked brow and shitty grin suggest _he knows, too_.

Which – _fucking what_? Since when did this dense piece of shit get a fucking clue?

Is it _that_ obvious?

Breaking in on his turmoil, "Get ready to jump, boys," comes the startlingly loud and theatrical voice of the freelancer as she holds aloft a hollow yet solid-looking, diaphanous orb, and strikes a pose like she's about to perform a fucking soliloquy. "Registry's about to go bye-bye!" Then, deliberately not waiting for them cheese it, she smashes the bauble down onto the roof, and exactly like last year in her ISS livestream, the thing pops soundlessly (which he'd mistakenly assumed was the fault of her being in the vacuum of space), disappears, and following a second of inactivity, balloons outward from an unknowable central point to encompass the entire structure.

Katsuki and Todoroki are already airborne and flying for the nearest building by the time Deku grabs Shrink Wrap by the waist and frantically leaps, _right_ before the monster fucking bubble contracts to 'wrap' the Registry.

And like that, in the blink of an eye, the Quirk Registry is gone.

/-/

Three things happen after they touch down on the next closest rooftop: first, Katsuki props Uraraka up beside a fire exit door and hastily presses the tips of her fingers together; second, Uraraka exhales, ' _Release_ ,' and promptly dives right to empty the contents of her stomach; and lastly, as Katsuki's bracing her and hurrying to hold her hair back, Todoroki's voice sounds directly in his earpiece,

" _Who had this month_?" Half-and-Half wonders with deadpan frankness, and initially Katsuki's lost –not to mention confused about why Todoroki would activate his comm to talk to him when they're standing literally in front of each other.

It soon becomes all too horrifyingly clear. One after another, the line fills with a chorus of shocking pronouncements:

" _Oh, crap baskets, did I miss it_?" Eijirou whines.

" _Truly? Congratulations_!" Ponytail extols.

" _I had next month,_ " Hanta laments.

" _Ochako-kun, Bakugou-kun, I commend you both on your courage and wish you many happy returns!_ " Four Eyes. He continues, " _Alas, I had last month_."

Deku, who's landed somewhere else after having taken the dive to catch the now toy-sized Registry: " _I didn't have this month, but I'll be collecting a cut of the side pot since it happened on the job_."

Ashido, who's not even _on the mission_ , somehow gains access to this closed, private channel, and _shrieks_ at an increasingly ear-fracturing pitch.

(…it's possible he imagines that last one, or that he's simply having a prescient flash of an annoying future.)

Last but not fucking least: " _I'll be accepting my check in person_." Motherfucking _**Wiretap**_. " _All proceeds will be going to your local Deep Dope merchandiser, thank you_."

Katsuki is going to murder every last one of them.

/-/

In a cab on the way to the hospital, Uraraka's laid across his lap, staring up at him with – _fuck, this'll take some getting used to_ —dopey adoration. She's grinning sweetly, a certain lingering, eerily Fifty Shades of Fried Kaminari to the vacancy of it.

"Oi, what the hell," he grouses, "stop making that stupid face." She pouts at him, in a goofy, endearing kind of way, which makes him want to kiss her all the fuck over again.

" _Your_ face is the stupid face," Uraraka insists, and how his brain interprets this as clever is beyond him.

Without heat, "Count yourself lucky you're a damn invalid, Cheeks."

In the sleepiest Smug imaginable, her eyelids fluttering shut, "…thought I was 'Ochako' now…"

Katsuki smirks to himself, lacing their fingers together, staring down at her in quiet awe and spinning out across a landscape of a thousand, a million, a _lifetime_ of possibilities, all predicated on _her_.

This time, he's not afraid. This time, he's not going to run away.

This time, he's playing for fucking keeps.

* * *

*'Mr. Threw-the-Damn-Match' - YOU BETTER FUCKING BELIEVE BAKUGOU'LL NEVER LET TODO-SON LIVE THIS DOWN

**'crap baskets' - KIRISHIMA IS AN INNOCENT ANGEL PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW YA' DAMN RIGHT HE'S GOT TFS GOHAN'S PHRASING SENSIBILITIES

/-/

other notes:

-two years. i started this fic in mid-2017, and i'm finally, finally done, as of the wee hours may-four 2019, and i am -well, weeping openly at my keyboard, for starters. overjoyed, also. in numb disbelief, a little. and sad, maybe?  
-i've got two remaining kacchako projects in the works: 1) the bodyguard AU i mentioned at the end of chapter ten, and 2) the 'feat equal' epilogue smut i've been promising for about a century now (which will be a separate entity entirely -its working title is 'a rational deception'). SO NEVER FEAR, KACCHAKO FAM, i'm not going anywhere in the immediate future (although i am still DETERMINED to get back to writing dbz as soon as possible, hahahahaha FML).  
-i absolutely, positively cannot thank you all enough for the insane kindness and support. y'all are the fuckin' tits and i love each and every last one of you.  
-plus ultra, my good chums~

3


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